


What Matter Where

by achray



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-Episode: s04e13 No Better To Be Safe Than Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:04:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achray/pseuds/achray
Summary: “Persephone was only there on a part-time basis,” said Eliot. “Very part-time. Right?”“I fuckingknewit,” said Margo. “You think there’s a vacancy."Or, Eliot Waugh, Prince Consort of the Underworld.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place immediately after the end of S4 and follows directly from canon. But without _accepting_ canon in any way, obviously. 
> 
> This will be in three parts plus an epilogue. I can't promise it will be completed very swiftly, but I'll try. With many thanks to [hetrez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetrez/pseuds/hetrez) for reading and cheerleading, and to everyone else for their support. 
> 
> Warning: in this story, Eliot purposefully enters into a relationship which has elements of dubious consent. The issues this causes are, in effect, part of the plot. And these issues are also not resolved in a way that all readers will consider a typical happy ending. Read advisedly! 
> 
> Title from _Paradise Lost_ , Book I:  
> One who brings  
> A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.  
> The mind is its own place, and in it self  
> Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.  
> What matter where, if I be still the same

 “OK,” said Eliot, after a while, once he thought the Fillorians, if they even _were_ Fillorians any more, were out of earshot. Margo was doing that thing where sheer fury steamed off her for a radius of about a foot. He’d missed it, though it wouldn’t do to sound fond at this juncture. “We’ve taken a moment to reflect on what kind of power-hungry, cliché-crazed dictator calls themselves the fucking ‘Dark King’ and now we have a plan, yes?”

“Go to the castle, sort the fucker out, find a fucking time-travel spell, device, whatever, and Outlander the fuck out of here,” said Margo, through her teeth.

“That’s…good,” said Eliot. “I’m – out of the loop and my memory’s a little hazy. Have we ever…encountered a time travel spell?”

“Got a _better_ plan?” said Margo.

“Umm,” said Eliot. “I’m not questioning your judgement, Bambi, God forbid, but maybe going in the opposite direction and looking for help elsewhere in Fillory, for a start. Rather than, just for instance, getting thrown into jail and executed before we get you back to – Josh.” Damn it, that last bit hadn’t come out naturally at all. Margo and Josh was – well. It was. He was being very supportive.

Margo opened her mouth to speak, and at that moment the thundering of hooves sounded, and an armed cavalry guard came round the corner, pikes levelled.

“Guess we’re going with your plan, then,” said Eliot, sotto voce, as they were surrounded. Margo glared at him, as they both raised their hands, or one hand, in Eliot’s case, in surrender.

***

Eliot would have preferred not to have spent his first day back in Fillory, in what felt like years, being hauled – again – into the Whitespire throne room under arrest. The stabbing pain at his heart, from grief and nostalgia, he’d expected. It was interacting beautifully with the stabbing pain in his stomach wound. He gritted his teeth: he was _not_ going to…weep, or collapse, or fucking faint or whatever, in front of some tinpot fascist. He gripped his cane, looking round: oh wait, now that was _outrage_. The throne room had been knocked through in some way, and was now three times as large, about twice as high, and contained a massive dais with one giant glittering throne on it.

Sitting on the throne, or rather lounging on it, Eliot saw as they got nearer, was a very handsome black man, in an exceptionally sharp suit in regal purple with a black shirt. If the Fillorians had learned to tailor like that in three centuries, then Eliot was a talking sloth. The guards deposited them at the bottom of the steps to the throne, bowed, and took a couple of steps backwards.

“Well?” said the man on the throne, possibly speaking to Eliot and Margo, possibly not.

“We found them wandering in the woods, your Highness,” said one of the guards, nervously. “They said they had important information for you.”

Margo drew herself up. “I’m Margo Hanson, former High King of Fillory,” she said. “Child of Earth. Magician.”

“And I’m Eliot Waugh,” said Eliot. He sketched a small bow, which was a mistake; it sent a wave of agony through his wound. He reached out for Margo’s hand and grasped it. “Also of Earth, also a magician, also former High King. Not that we’re – uh – interested in the throne or anything. We’re simply  - displaced in time and we wish to get back to our own time as soon as possible.”

“Exactly,” said Margo. “We’re not here to cause trouble. A little time-travel aid and boom! We’re outta here.”

“Time-travel,” said the king. His voice was melodious. He sounded amused. “Former High Kings of Fillory. I see. Oh, my sweet summer children, if I can put it that way. From where I’m sitting, looks like _you’re_ a young werewolf with a fairy eye and some faulty banishment charms, and you’re a – ” He glanced at Eliot, who tried to stand up straighter and stop leaning on his cane so much “ – an ordinary human, in mourning, though with lingering traces of, hmmm.” He looked Eliot up and down.

“A monster,” said Eliot. “A child of the old gods. Margo helped to destroy it.”

“Oh, I know,” said the king. He smiled, broadly and not altogether pleasantly.

“Let me introduce myself before you go any further. I’m Hades. I know who you are. I read your books. I’ve been expecting you.”

Eliot’s hand tightened on Margo’s, and he heard her hiss.

“So you’re the _literal_ Dark King,” she said, recovering fast, though Eliot could _feel_ her thinking furiously. “Good to know.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,” said Eliot, “because I don’t mean to pry, or anything, but, uh, why are you _here_?”

Hades shrugged. “I was a little bored,” he said. “I lacked – companionship. Entertainment. Solace. And the Library was getting very – investigative and irritating – about some aspects of my bureaucratic setup. I decided I needed a change of scene. A harmless outlet. Spend a few – ” he waved a hand, “months, decades, centuries in a charming little world that had lost its gods and needed some restorative magic, and give it some direction and focus.”

“We’re sorry about your – about Persephone. Our Lady Underground,” said Eliot, carefully. “That was – recent. For us.”

“Did we mention that we took revenge on the Monsters using my axes?” said Margo. “I mean, I’m sure you know that, but – ”

Hades stretched.

“We can discuss over dinner,” he said. His gaze swept over Eliot again, thoughtfully, and Eliot swallowed. “I look forward to it. But I have some business to attend to first.”

He waved a hand and the guards clattered to attention.

“Take Ms Hanson and Mr Waugh to suitable accommodation, and see to it that their needs are met.”

“You – ” said Margo – but fortunately they were hustled out of the room before she could say more.

They were taken to a large room that Eliot recognized from the East Tower, though it was much more lavishly appointed now. It looked like a five-star boutique hotel room in some European chateau.

After the guards went out, he limped over to the door. It was locked. Margo was already trying the windows, even though they both knew it was a hundred feet straight down to the Mirrored Courtyard.

Margo sighed, and sat down on the bed. “El,” she said. She patted the bed beside her.

Eliot stopped poking at the locks with magic and went and sat down, painfully. He looked at his hands.

“No,” said Margo.

“Margo – ” said Eliot.

“He’s the fucking lord of the dead,” Margo said. “Q – ” she swallowed, “Q’s dead. Tell me you’re _not_ going to ask him to get you to the Underworld.”

Eliot closed his eyes for a moment. “I promised you,” he said. It wasn’t a memory he could fully handle, yet; Margo holding both his hands in that hospital bed, tears running down her face, terrified and fierce. “I’m not going to die before you unless something kills me, and I swear I’ll go down fighting. But I’d do anything for even five minutes with him. Anything, Bambi.”

“I get it,” Margo said. “Believe me, El, I’ve _seen_ you over the last few weeks. But fucking around with the gods – fucking around with _this particular_ god, always ends in tears, we _know_ this. This is like Mythology 101: he’s the god _of hell_. We need to – talk him into getting us back. Where _I_ need to sort out whatever the fuck happened to Fen and Josh so that it doesn’t happen this go-round, and _you_ need to go back to Earth, find a good therapist, do your physio and eat fucking spiralized kale or whatever. And then one day, maybe not soon, maybe not for a while, but one day, a nice boy will make your double macchiato and you’ll realise you want to take him home, cook him dinner, fuck him blind and settle down in a mid-range apartment with – I don’t even fucking know. Cats. Houseplants. Egyptian cotton sheets.”

Eliot put his arm round her, and pulled her close. He kissed the top of her head.

“It’s a nice story,” he said. “I’m just not sure it’s mine.”

Margo leaned against him. She sighed. “I don’t want to help with this,” she said. “I mean it. Don’t think I can’t see where this is going. If you end up in the Underworld, that counts as dying, are we clear?”

“Persephone was only there on a part-time basis,” said Eliot. “Very part-time. Right?”

“I fucking _knew_ it,” said Margo. “You think there’s a vacancy. Remind me, didn’t Hades abduct Persephone? Force her to marry him? You think this is a good track record? You want to see me go full fucking Demeter?”

“All I want to do is…explore the options we might have in this situation,” said Eliot.

“Let’s be clear, sweetie. By ‘options’, you mean, you’re happy to fuck him, if that’s what you think it takes. I saw him giving you that once-over.”

“It would fit my standard MO, yes. Though I’m willing to admit that never have I had less game.” He grimaced.

“I’m sorry,” said Margo, petting him. “But you couldn’t be more right. What with the – stomach wound and – ”

“ – the all-consuming grief and anger,” said Eliot. “Yeah. I’m not exactly. On form.”

“In other circumstances I’d offer to, you know, help out,” said Margo. “Except – and I can’t believe I’m saying this – I think Josh would be upset about it. Also I am indefatigably opposed – indefatigably _fucking_ opposed – to making nice with Hades in any way.”

Eliot sighed. “I’m so tired,” he said.

Margo stroked his hair. “Your meds should be due. And we should check the bandages. Those fucking guards.”

“He could have flung us in a dungeon. Assuming this place still has dungeons, he’s probably redecorated them as a fucking bordello,” said Eliot, lifting his head and looking around. “This is just – tacky.”

“There now, that sounds more like you,” said Margo.

“I try,” said Eliot. He slumped back on her shoulder. “I am trying. I am _trying_ , I know that too.”

“Enough with the fucking self-pity, Waugh,” said Margo, holding on to him hard. She blew out a breath. “Dinner with Hades. Fuck my life. And keep an eye on the fruit bowl.”

**

They hadn’t brought any spare clothes, though on inspection, there was a wardrobe full of Fillorian outfits in a corner of the room. In both their sizes.

“This is creepy,” said Margo. “These aren’t even carefully-preserved vintage. He must have had them made.”

“He saw us coming,” said Eliot, contemplating a midnight-black, high-necked Fillorian tunic, with tiny mother-of-pearl buttons.

“He certainly saw your current aesthetic coming,” said Margo. She held up a shift made from some kind of shimmering metallic gold, with green threads through it. “What the hell, this is hot, I’m wearing it. Unless it’s like – aren’t there poisoned clothes? In Greek myth?”

“Don’t ask me, I was high in that class,” Eliot said. “You’ll have to give me a hand out of my shirt. I don’t suppose he’s left us any eyeliner?”

After all their preparation, dinner was something of an anticlimax. Hades was at the top of a very long and shiny banqueting table, requiring Eliot to limp painfully all the way up it to sit on his right, with Margo across from him.

Hades poured her a drink – Eliot narrowed his eyes at the decanter, which seemed to be full of red wine, real red wine – and then turned to Eliot.

“No alcohol, please,” said Eliot, with reluctance. “I’m, umm, taking medications.”

They were, of course, partly magical medications. Unfortunately Lipson had been very clear that they still wouldn’t mix well with drowning your sorrows.

“A shame for you to miss out on the products of your own viniculture,” said Hades. “With a couple of centuries and a little magical assistance, the Cabernet has turned out really rather impressive this year. I’ll send one of my healers to you tomorrow and we’ll see what can be done.”

Eliot’s eyes met Margo’s across the table.

“We were hoping to _get home_ tomorrow,” she said.

“Well,” said Hades. “That won’t be possible quite yet, I’m afraid.”

“Are we your _prisoners_?” Margo said, smiling at him politely. “If you’ll excuse my language, what the ever-loving fuck is going on here?” She really did look dazzling in that dress.

Hades leaned back, sipping his wine. He looked intensely and privately amused.

“Prisoners is a little strong,” he said. “Let’s say that before I decide whether to help with your various desires, I might wish to…get to know you. Humour me.”

Margo pressed her lips together. Then she smiled an entirely fake smile, raised her glass to Hades, and toasted him. She took a very large gulp of wine.

Hades toasted her back, then turned to Eliot.

“So tell me,” he said. “Were the Lorians quite such fucking assholes in your time, or did it develop gradually?”

***

The guards collected them and walked them back after two hours of small-talk about Fillorian politics past and present, and irritatingly good food. After the first hour, and even sober, Eliot found he had relaxed, slightly. If he handwaved the fact that Hades could feasibly already know all their best anecdotes, and also the fact that he could presumably have blasted them into space with his little finger, Eliot had a lot of Fillory material to share, and much of it was innocuous. Relatively innocuous. He and Margo had done this many times, with people they wanted to charm, this was old-school bullshit, segueing into each other’s best stories like a dance.

Except that any time Margo had opened her mouth to ask about time-travel, Hades had smoothly, and almost imperceptibly, shut her down. It was impressive, in its way.

 “We have a second bedroom along the corridor,” the guard who seemed slightly more senior said, politely enough, as they paused outside the door of their previous room. He was speaking to Eliot.

Eliot didn’t need to look to Margo, she was already grasping his wrist.

“We’re sharing,” she said. “Hey. You guys are meeting our immediate needs, right? Well I need another carafe of that wine and some eyeliner. Pronto. Got it?”

The senior guard, to his credit, simply bowed politely, opened the door, and escorted them in.

“I’m sorry,” said Eliot.

“You think I’d let you fuck off to another room? We’re sticking together for safety.” She went and hunted in the wardrobe, and tossed Eliot a nightshirt type thing. He sat down on the bed again and struggled with his buttons.

“That wine is really fucking good, by the way,” said Margo.

“Good to know I did one thing right as king,” said Eliot. “You know, he’s very -well. I’ve met less personable gods.”

“Don’t get distracted by the fact that he’s hot. He’s playing with us. I wish I knew _why_.” She came over to help with the buttons, then turned so that Eliot could unfasten the clasp at her neck.

“I think we should be planning an escape,” she said, letting the shift fall to the floor and pulling a silky nightdress over her head. “I bet he doesn’t know about the portal in the cheese store.”

“We could,” said Eliot. “Though since we’ve been escorted everywhere by six armed guards since we hit the forest, and I’m presently crippled, I’m not sure how far we’d get.”

“Fine,” said Margo. “But I need you to know, El, that this is not the fucking Shawshank Redemption. There is no long game here. I’ve got shit to do in our Fillory right the fuck now. Tomorrow we ask him, OK?”

Eliot woke up in the early hours of the morning, face wet. Margo was still asleep, breathing softly, on the other side of the bed, back to him, so at least he hadn’t been noisy. It was the same dream. He woke up in the hospital, and Q was there, smiling helplessly at him, reaching out to him, and he couldn’t believe it, he was so happy –

The dream didn’t usually get beyond that. He would wake up in pain like he’d never known, and he’d thought he knew heartbreak back, front and sideways. And then he’d lie awake with the same thoughts circling: if he hadn’t, if he’d only, if he’d been – All the ways in which he’d fucked up, all the ways in which he’d let Q down, over and over, until the end. All the things he should have said, back when he had the chance to say them.

Here, though, at least waking up was different. The room smelled of Whitespire – stone, dust, cedarwood, magic. There were no sirens, no city sounds, nothing. He and Margo were in terrible danger, and so probably were Josh and Fen, he knew that. What was new, after the last few terrible weeks, was that at least he was – somewhere else. Doing something. Not lying in a darkened room with his friends talking in low voices next door, on and on.

He closed his eyes, and tried to remember everything that Quentin had ever said about visiting the Underworld.

***

The next day, servants brought them hot water, fresh linen, and breakfast, and a human healer came and inspected Eliot’s wound, scribbled some notes, and left again, frowning. She wouldn’t be drawn on what she was looking for or why, which didn’t seem to bode well. After her departure, the same troop of guards arrived and escorted them on a tour of New Whitespire. The leader pointed out each feature, politely, but equally wouldn’t answer any questions. Eliot was beginning to wonder if the guards were even human. They were very nondescript, somehow, compared to his own former palace guards, who had pretty much always been off either planning rebellion, fucking each other in dark corners, or stealing cake from the kitchens.

It was difficult for them to say much to each other, under surveillance. Margo had spent more time in Fillory than Eliot had, in the last year or two. He could see by the narrowing of her eyes that there was something to say.

Around midday, they were left alone in a small walled courtyard, which Eliot was pretty sure was new, with a folding table and some food. The courtyard was decorated in shiny blue tiles, with a small fountain in the middle surrounded by lilies. Water trickled and sun shone down on them, though they’d been shown to chairs conveniently placed in the shade.

“I don’t even know if we should be eating this food,” said Margo, contemplating it.

“We can’t starve,” said Eliot. “Anyway, those rules only apply in the Underworld. I think. And we already ate dinner.”

“Yeah,” said Margo. “You know, I don’t want to get us eviscerated, but if I have to admire another fucking turret I might do some eviscerating myself. Fuck, I want my axes.” She took a bite of a pastry thing. “And did you see they’d tiled over the bearskip hall? If we could’ve got down to the secret sea…”

“I missed all that,” said Eliot. “I could never quite picture which hall you meant.”

“I was going to show you,” said Margo. She set down the food again, and ran her hand through her hair.

“El,” she said, not looking at him. “What if Josh and Fen are – what if he killed them? Or someone else did. What if, even if we do get back, they’re – ”

Eliot put his hand on hers. “I don’t believe that,” he said. “And you shouldn’t either. We’ll get you back to them.”

“You mean, ‘ _we’ll_ get back’,” said Margo. “Both of us.” She was biting her lip, and blinking. “Fuck this whole scenario, El. We can’t even get, like, three months off after all this?”

“I know,” said Eliot. There was an embroidered handkerchief in one of his suit pockets. He passed it over and Margo dabbed at her eyes, delicately, and without looking at him.

Nobody had really talked to Eliot about the details of how everything had played out, over the last year, and he hadn’t wanted to know. He wasn’t sure he could take hearing it. Even Margo’s Epic Solo Quest, which he’d heard recounted more than once, sounded like it might have involved a whole load more angst, suffering, fury and fear than it did in her highly polished retelling.

Everything about his friends seemed to have – sharpened, in his absence. They were older, and a little bit harder. The thought of what Quentin might have looked like, before – this was one of the thoughts that Eliot had to shove very hard into a dark corner whenever it raised its head.

“How are my eyes?” said Margo.

“Good,” said Eliot. “You’ve got a little…” he leaned over and dabbed off a speck of mascara. Margo took a deep breath.

“Let’s go back to the room and – finish off that wine,” she said, grimly. “If we’re not escaping, I need a drink. Just a couple though. We’re going to want to be clear-headed, for later.”

“Noted,” said Eliot. He stood up and offered her his arm, picking up his cane. “Let’s see if we can sweep past the guards and leave them flailing in our wake.”

***

Dinner that night was a repeat of the lastt, except that Margo was visibly thrumming with impatience throughout the small talk.

“My healer visited you,” said Hades, to Eliot, as the dessert plates were cleared.

“Umm, yes,” said Eliot. “Thank you. Though she wasn’t exactly forthcoming.”

Hades smiled very slightly. “She reported to me,” he said.

Eliot wasn’t sure how to reply to this, so he raised his eyebrows slightly and said nothing.

Margo set her napkin on the table, pointedly.

“How about we talk about how much we need to get the fuck home,” she said, outwardly pleasant.

Hades cocked his head and looked at her. “So impatient,” he said. “Here I am, perfectly willing to be entertained by two very junior mortals, and all you can think about is how to get back to your little boyfriend. All _you_ can think about, that is. Now _Eliot’s_ thoughts, those are rather more fascinating.”

Eliot winced.

“Leave him the fuck alone,” Margo said, as he opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t sure what.

Hades threw back his head and laughed.

“You’re so charmingly defiant,” he said. “A quality I’ve always admired. It’s rather sweet, your protectiveness. You remind me of my dear departed ex, despite your best efforts not to. And, also like her – ” he leaned forward – “there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Or, indeed, to stop _him_.”

He snapped his fingers, a sound that shouldn’t have been audible beyond the end of the table, and two of the possibly-robot guards immediately marched in.

“Former High King Margo will be returning to her room now,” Hades said.

“Like fuck I will,” said Margo.

“Eliot and I have things to discuss,” said Hades. He leaned back and crossed his legs, meeting Eliot’s eyes. “Don’t we?”

“ _El_ – ” said Margo, leaning over the table, reaching out.  The guards hovered behind her chair.

Eliot shut his eyes for a moment. His heart hurt. “It’s OK,” he said. “Really.”

“Don’t,” said Margo. “Don’t _fucking do this_ , El, I’ll – ” Her voice broke.

“You should go,” said Eliot. “I won’t forget, Bambi. I swear to you – ”

“God _damn_ it,” said Margo. She stood up and her chair fell over with a crash. “We’ve killed gods before, and if you hurt him I will fucking hunt you down,” she said to Hades.

“No need for such melodrama,” said Hades. “Enjoyable as it is. Eliot will be at your door in, hmmm, two human hours or thereabouts. Unharmed. You have my word.”

Margo snorted. She didn’t look at Eliot. She glared at Hades, and then she turned and marched out of the room, heels clicking sharply on the floor. Eliot put his head in his hands, for a moment, breathing carefully. He thought he might cry, which would be utterly humiliating.

He took a deep breath, looked up, and looked Hades in the eye. Hades was watching him, impassive.

“If you’ve read my book, don’t you already know what I’m going to ask?” he said.

Hades shrugged. “Everything is changeable,” he said. “I can’t read minds, you know, though your thoughts are not – opaque, on some themes. Ask for what you want.”

“Noted,” said Eliot. “OK.” His heart was beating harder. “I want Margo returned to Josh and Fen, at the moment when they returned to Fillory. And - I want to get Quentin Coldwater out of the Underworld. I want him alive.”

“Hmm,” said Hades. “Doable. Though what you all see in that boy is hard to fathom. And what are you offering in exchange?”

“I made a promise that I have to keep,” said Eliot. “That I wouldn’t – give up my own life.” He looked at Hades directly. “Anything else, I would give.”

When he’d imagined this conversation, he’d been being a lot – smoother and more seductive. But he was too exhausted to pretend: he knew he sounded desperate, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Hades raised one eyebrow. “Risky, to give a god such leeway,” he said.

“I was hoping we might negotiate a deal,” said Eliot. 

“We might,” said Hades. “I enjoy a good negotiation. Shall I take pity on you, and propose a starting offer?” He toyed with his wine glass. “As I said, I lack companionship. I was thinking about taking a new consort. If you wished to be considered, I would, naturally, grant the favours you ask in return.”

Eliot wet his lips. He couldn’t quite believe that this conversation was really happening. He took a sip of water, to buy time. “And what would the, umm, duties include?”

Hades smiled at him, slowly. “I expect you can imagine,” he said. “Your book was very detailed on your…sexual preferences. I don’t believe you would find them incompatible with my own.”

Eliot felt himself, to his shame, blushing. Though to be fair, he hadn’t anticipated quite such bluntness.

“Though I don’t simply want a human toy,” said Hades. “I want someone with, hmm, leadership experience. Bureaucracy bores me, and the Underworld is one giant fucking bureaucratic mess, to put it mildly. I need someone trustworthy on hand. You’re wondering why I’m interested in you, aren’t you?”

Eliot shrugged. “Yes,” he said. “I am. You could have – literally anybody on Earth. Or Fillory. Or – wherever else there is.”

“You’ve met gods before,” said Hades. “You helped to destroy them. Your body _hosted_ a creature stronger than most gods, and you came back with your mind and soul intact. Do you know how unusual that is, for a mortal? You’re – a little nervous at this moment, understandably, but you’re not afraid of what I could do to you. You don’t want to fall to your knees and worship me: worshippers are so inane. You’ve been a king, and you were able to give up power with grace. You may not see it, but you’re pretty fucking unique. Besides, I like your style.”

“That’s very – flattering,” said Eliot. He didn’t precisely believe Hades, but he was starting to feel slightly more like himself. “For the record, I _could_ fall to my knees if you asked me to. If I wasn’t incapacitated.”

“Oh?” said Hades, his gaze interested.

“Returning to the original subject,” said Eliot, swallowing. “If I said yes. Would this – role – be, umm, seasonal? That’s traditional by now, right?”

Hades sat back, and crossed his arms, still smiling slightly. “How seasonal?” he said.

“Six months in the Underworld, as your consort,” said Eliot. “To perform… whatever duties you wish. And – six months off. Each year. Starting – from my time. 2019 on Earth, I mean, not whatever year this is, here.”

“Possible,” said Hades. “And for how long are you offering this? Eternity seems a little much to promise at this juncture. How about open-ended for a few millennia, as a starting point, and then we could renegotiate?”

“How about seven years?” said Eliot.

“Very Biblical,” said Hades. “If I blinked, I would miss it. Seven centuries.”

“Seventy years,” said Eliot. “My lifetime.”

“Threescore and ten,” said Hades. “Hmm, I suppose it does have a certain ring to it.” He stroked his chin, considering. “I’m prepared to agree to this. Subject to renewal.”

“And if I – don’t want to renew?”

“Because you want to spend eternity in Elysium with your human beloved?” said Hades. “I’m confident I can make you change your mind, if I wish to do so.”

“OK,” said Eliot. “That’s – OK. And – no immortality? I can stay human, when I’m on earth?”

Hades laughed. “You see, you truly are unique,” he said. “If you only knew how many of your kind have begged me for eternal life: to keep their youth, their beauty…Yes, if you wish to age and die a mortal, Eliot Waugh, you can. That has no effect on me. In my realm, of course, you will remain as you are now, unless I choose otherwise.”

“And Margo and Quentin?”

“I will return her to Fillory, to the moment before her friends start to encounter some…difficulties, with a spell which will enable her to move between your times more fluidly. The difficulties were not initially caused by me, I might add. How she negotiates these will depend on her. Mr Coldwater – I presume you might wish to meet him, before he returns to life? He may not wish to, you know.” His tone was sardonic.

“I know,” Eliot said. “I’m hoping I can change his mind on that. And yes, if I could speak to him, before – I would be grateful.”

“Then I look forward to your gratitude,” said Hades. “You will have to locate him, in the Underworld, and then you will have the authority to sign his release. If he _doesn’t_ wish to leave, you understand that you will still be bound?”

“Yes,” said Eliot. He reached out for his water, noticed his hand was shaking, and stopped, clasping his hands together.

“You will find that you can do a great deal, in my name. I shall enjoy seeing how you use your new powers, I think.” Hades raised his glass to Eliot, in a toast, and drank.

“That’s – it?” said Eliot. “We’re – we have a deal?”

“I will have the contract drawn up tonight,” said Hades. “Don’t forget to read the small print. And you’ll sign it at daybreak. In blood, of course, as part of the ritual.”

“Of course,” said Eliot, swallowing.

“Before that, though. Well. One never gets the full effect from someone’s book, no matter how detailed. And I can’t say I believe in waiting till the marriage night. “

Eliot’s mouth was dry. His stomach clenched. Hades pushed his chair back, stood up, and walked round to Eliot’s chair. Eliot turned sideways in it, to face him.

Hades set a hand on Eliot’s shoulder, and bent down to kiss him, warm and hard. Eliot hadn’t kissed anyone, anyone real, anyone as himself, with intent since – since so long ago, that he could barely remember what it had felt like. Hades kissed with absolute confidence and skill: of course he did, Eliot thought, detached and slightly hysterical; he was a god, and Eliot had just agreed…. Don’t _think_ about it, he told himself, and leaned up, sliding an arm around Hades’ waist deepening the kiss.

Hades was very attractive, and very male, and he was – a fucking outstanding kisser, thank all the gods – and Eliot wanted – He was so _relieved_ , to feel desire, and not simply because it would have made things very difficult if he hadn’t. He hadn’t felt anything uncomplicated in months, years perhaps, anything as simple as want, anything that had an actual immediate solution.

He craned up higher, trying to pull Hades down, and the stitches in his wound pulled. He made an involuntary sound, and Hades drew back.

“It’s OK,” said Eliot, breathless “it’s only – the injury, from – ”

Hades was looking him over, frowning. He flicked his fingers and Eliot’s tunic and undershirt unbuttoned, all the way down, exposing his chest and the ugly dressing on his stomach.

“Impressive,” Eliot said. He knew that spell too, so he knew how hard it was to get it right, so easily. Normally he liked to be looked at, but he felt rather like defective goods, at the moment.

Hades ran his hands down Eliot’s sides, and Eliot shivered. It felt dangerously good. One of his hands settled on the bandage, and pressed gently. Eliot made a noise in his throat. It hurt, but he was also – he was getting hard, he wanted to press up, into the feeling.

“Does that hurt?” said Hades.

“Yeah,” said Eliot. “Yes. I mean. Not in a bad way, necessarily, though I’m not usually inclined to…masochism. It’s – the stitches – I might not be able to do anything very – energetic.”

The corners of Hades’ mouth twitched, amused. “Do you think I don’t take care of the things that are mine?” he said. “I had a spell prepared for you this afternoon. And you seem to be forgetting who I am. I can simply – ” He pressed a little harder and light flowed from under the edges of his hand. Eliot gasped. Relief, coolness, swept through him. He’d spent every day he’d been back trying to ignore the constant nagging pain, and its sudden absence was like loud music shutting off, like the best high, swirling through him. 

“You’ll need the spell for follow-up, though, since it was a magical wound”, said Hades.

Eliot reached down and peeled the dressing off. The skin underneath looked new, marred only by a curving scar, old enough to have been there for years.

“Thank you,” he said, roughly. He took Hades’ hand, daring, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed the palm.

“It wasn’t disinterested,” said Hades. “Perhaps I should warn you that my motives rarely are.” He was breathing a little harder.

Eliot smiled up at him, in an old familiar way, the way he would at any lover he was trying to impress, and licked a stripe up his hand, then pressed two of his fingers into his mouth. Hades made a sound, an _interested_ sound, and Eliot groaned. He felt suddenly almost desperate with lust: he slid off the chair, kneeling and running his hands up Hades’ thighs, which were mouth-wateringly strong.

“Please, let me,” he said. Hades seemed like the kind of man who might enjoy begging and pleading, and Eliot had no objection to that at all, in this precise moment.

“Of course,” said Hades.

He didn’t sound at all unruffled, but that was up to Eliot to change. It had been a long time since he’d got to have a cock in his mouth, and God, he’d missed it. He knew this, he loved this, it really didn’t matter if Hades was a god, because he was in the body of an extremely hot man, and Eliot was absolutely prepared to worship it right now and forget about anything else.

He did try, a little, to show off, though: he was very invested in making Hades lose some of that cool. Plus, it felt good, it felt _really_ good: as he took Hades deeper, he tugged on Eliot’s hair, and that was great; he tried to show his appreciation and smiled as he heard Hades groan, above him.

He would have happily carried on, but Hades grasped his hair and pulled him off, stepping back. Eliot looked up at him, pretty sure he was looking entirely debauched. Hopefully Hades liked it.

“Mmm,” said Hades. “Good.” He stroked Eliot’s cheek. “What do you think I want to do to you now?”

Eliot licked his lips, watching Hades watch him, and then slid a hand down his own chest, to touch himself. Both of them were still almost fully dressed.

“At a guess,” he said, “You’d like to bend me over this table and fuck me senseless.”

Hades raised one eyebrow. “And what do you want?”

Eliot let his eyes flutter closed, tipping his head back. Then he opened them, and met Hades’ gaze. “I want that,” he said.

“You see?” said Hades. “I told you we were compatible.”

***

Eliot took his cane with him, tucked under his arm.  It felt fucking amazing just to walk down the corridor without pain, even with a slight hitch in his step that was nothing to do with a stomach wound. The guards all seemed to have vanished, prudently. Hades hadn’t sent anyone with him: and he’d even slid a key to Eliot, as he left.

His mood dimmed somewhat as he neared Margo’s – their – door. He knocked, carefully, and then unlocked it.

“It’s me,” he said. “Don’t throw anything.” Margo was in the bed, arms round her knees, her hair loose. She looked up at Eliot when he came in, gaze sweeping over him, taking in the cane under his arm, and his general state of dishevelment. Eliot stayed still, letting her read him.

“He healed you?” she said.

“He did,” said Eliot. “Can I sit down?”

Margo moved over a little on the bed.

“You stink of sex,” she said, dully. “It had better have been good.”

Eliot sighed. “It was good. It was – really great, actually.”

“Not exactly fucking surprising,” said Margo. “Given that he’s a god. Just tell me what you agreed. Get it over with.”

“Six months as his, umm, consort in the underworld, six months on Earth,” said Eliot. “Or Fillory, I guess. Above ground. Topside. Whatever. You get back to help Josh and Fen, Quentin gets – to be alive again.”

“And what do you get?” said Margo. “What do you fucking get, Eliot?”

“I get to know that Quentin’s alive,” said Eliot. “I don’t even care – or I do care, but I’ll cope – if he doesn’t want me, if he wants Alice or no-one or someone we haven’t even met yet. I get to know he’s – fucking walking the dog or reading his stupid books or smiling at Julia. I get to know that Josh and Fen – and I care about them too, you know – aren’t rotting in the ground somewhere. And that you’re with them.”

“While you’re in the Underworld,” said Margo. “You never bothered to read the classics, did you? Virgil. Dante. Milton. All that fucking inventive torture. Hell is a real place, Eliot. And you’re trying to hand yourself over to the god who _designed_ it. As some kind of – ” she waved a hand, eloquently. “Do you think Q would want this? That I want it? You signing a blank cheque for him to do whatever he wants to do to you, while we, what, fucking wait six months to see if you’re returned in one piece?”

“Ummm. Six months every year,” said Eliot. He ran his hands through his hair. “For – my lifetime, effectively. I did bargain him down.”

“Fuck,” said Margo. “That’s – you signed over half your life.”

“Bambi, it’s not that bad,” said Eliot. “He wants me to help out with the Underworld bureaucracy, deal with the Library, do all the shit he can’t be bothered to do. He’s looking for, I don’t know, a lieutenant.”

“Oh yeah, I get it,” said Margo. “And then what, he wants to fuck you and you say, not tonight, dear, I’ve got a headache? What the fuck happens then, Eliot? Did this even _cross your mind_?”

Eliot flinched. “I haven’t signed anything,” he said. “He said he’d send me – us – the contract. For…the ceremony at dawn. He _said_ , check the small print. I’m not sure it was a joke.”

“If I ask you to take it back,” said Margo. “If I fucking _beg_ you.”

“Then at least three of my friends are _dead_ when I could have kept them alive,” said Eliot. “And you and I have both lost the people we want. This is a good deal, Margo. Six months is – it’s not terrible. I made the offer.”

“I’ve just got through a fucking year without you,” said Margo, “and I don’t ever fucking want to do it again.”

“But you did get through it,” said Eliot. He slid closer and put an arm round her, and she let him. “You got through it with Fen, and Josh, and the others. And yourself, and those motherfucking axes. You can fight with Hades over the details, but – this is my choice, sweetheart. It’s the best choice I have. And he - ” he swallowed “ – he didn’t have to be nice. He didn’t have to heal me. He didn’t have to – listen to our stories. He didn’t have to, uh, fuck me in a way that was good for me too, he could have just – I – I _like_ him, Bambi.”

“Yeah,” said Margo. “Because you’re thinking with your dick and with your heart, like always.” She sighed. “How many times, El. Just because they’re good in bed, doesn’t mean they’re a good person. And this time, if he turns out to want to – chain you to the bed or whatever, there’s no way out.”

“I bet you could find a way,” said Eliot. He tightened his hold on her.

“What the fuck is Fen going to say, when I tell her I let you sell yourself as a sex slave to the god of the dead?”

“Fen’s used to my being a self-destructive fuck-up,” said Eliot. “I’m sure she’ll cope.”

One of the identikit guards knocked on their door a couple of hours later, with what appeared to be a twenty page handwritten manuscript. Eliot couldn’t really tell, since Margo snatched it out of his hands the moment he accepted it and started scanning it, muttering to herself. Eliot went off to wash, and to find something new to wear.

“Daybreak, you said?” Margo said, looking up at him as he was trying to choose between almost-identical black tunics. “What time do you think it is now?”

“Umm, three, four?” said Eliot.

Margo was already opening the door. “Hey, guards!” she shouted, and Eliot heard someone running towards her.

“I need a meeting with Hades stat,” she said. “Eliot appointed me his negotiator. No deal unless we sort some shit out.”

“Err, my lady, we aren’t…”

“ _Now_ ,” said Margo, and the guard clearly crumbled.

“Wait – “ said Eliot, “I’m not dressed, I’m not – ”

“You’re not coming,” said Margo. “Stay here and make googly eyes to yourself about your demon lover. And dress up, this is the straight-up equivalent of a fucking marriage contract and you’d better not embarrass me.”

She marched out of the room and slammed the door behind her, purposefully.

“Shit,” said Eliot, with feeling, and started going through the wardrobe more carefully.

***

Margo came back an hour or so later, alone. Eliot came over from where he had been, quite literally, pacing the floor and wringing his hands.

“This still fucking stinks,” said Margo, slightly wild-eyed. “But I’ve done the best I can for you. And for me. Come on.” She linked her arm through Eliot’s. “We need to get you to the signing immediately. I think I may have frayed the patience of a god.”

They ended up in the throne room, where the brightening of the air through the windows suggested that sunrise was imminent. Hades was waiting, alone, arms folded. A complex set of symbols glittered on the floor around him. Eliot tried to decipher them, but they seemed to shift even as he read them. There was a stone set in the centre, with a kind of silver tray thing on it, a quill, and the contract.

“You have less than thirty seconds for your goodbyes,” said Hades, curt.

Eliot’s heart was thumping. He kissed Margo on the cheek, and then on her mouth, and hugged her hard. “I love you,” he said, into her ear.

“Don’t act like this is goodbye,” said Margo, pulling back, trying and failing to smile at him. “Diane Lockhart would’ve been proud of me in there. Six months and twelve hours to the day, Earth time: Grand Central Station, 5pm. Be there, El.”

Eliot couldn’t speak. He nodded, and went into the circle, to stand across from Hades. Hades reached out and took one of Eliot’s hands, then pushed his sleeve up. He made a slash in the air with his other hand, and a thin line of red sprang up on Eliot’s arm. Christ, Eliot hoped Margo hadn’t seen that. Hades moved Eliot so that a few drops of blood dripped onto the parchment, and then passed him the quill. Eliot bent down and scrawled something that might have vaguely passed for a signature. His hand was shaking so much he could barely write. Quentin, he thought. _Quentin_.

When he stood up Hades raised his eyebrows, smiled very slightly, and said three words. And then the throne room was gone, in a clap of thunder.

Eliot was standing, still beside Hades, in what appeared to be an incredibly tasteless hotel lobby. It was packed full of people, sitting on sofas staring into space, standing in lines that curled round the entire lobby, eddying aimlessly. Men and women in some kind of uniform were behind desks, answering questions, and walking round briskly with clipboards, looking anxious.

Hades didn’t shift a muscle or say anything, but a kind of ripple effect moved out from him, with people turning to look – one woman dropped her clipboard – and to gasp and murmur.

Hades cleared his throat. “Denizens of the Underworld,” he said, in a ringing tone. There was magic behind it, a lot of magic, so that it echoed oddly and in ways that didn’t quite fit with the space they seemed to be in. “I present to you my new consort, Eliot Waugh, former High King of Fillory. I have given him the remit to – ensure that your experiences in the afterlife are fitting. You will follow his commands.”

He turned to Eliot, smiling in a way that could only be described as a smirk. Eliot, still reeling, tried to smile back.

“This place is insufferably dull,” said Hades, lower and confidential. “I won’t stay to watch. Use my…office” – he scowled slightly at the word – “and I will find you there later. And, Eliot?”

Eliot blinked, and Hades leaned in, and up, slightly, to kiss him. Eliot’s knees went slightly weak, though that could have been the effect of the interdimensional travel, or the sheer blinding panic he was feeling.

“I look forward to our first night together,” Hades said, low, and before Eliot could gather himself together to reply, he had vanished.

Very fucking smooth, Waugh, Eliot thought to himself, missing Margo already. He looked around. All the staff and quite a few of the – the dead, he supposed, were gaping at him. He took a deep breath and put his shoulders back.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I apologize for my abrupt entrance into your midst. If the most senior staff member here could escort me to, umm, the appropriate office – ” he looked at the nearest man in uniform, who seemed to be staring back in speechless horror, “I will begin my, umm, review of this – organization. Place. World. Oh, and also, everyone take note, I want an all points bulletin out on Quentin Coldwater, that’s C-o-l-d-w-a-t-e-r, recently deceased. Just - get him here, pronto.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to [hetrez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetrez/pseuds/hetrez), again! Also, realised when writing chapter 3 that the Christmas holidays should have happened in this chapter, on the unspecified timeline I'm now specifying, so let's assume they did and no-one especially cared. :)

Quentin was sitting on the pier, dangling his feet in the clear water, where small darting silver fish occasionally nibbled on his toes, and drinking a Coke with exactly the right amount of ice and lemon, when he decided it was time to see a little more of Elysium. There was no particular reason. He wasn’t _bored_. He was just mildly curious.

On arrival at the station, when you had to fill out a form in triplicate about whom you wanted or really didn’t want to meet in the afterlife, he’d requested to see his dad. The transfer had been almost immediate, which had made him wonder whether he had been fast-tracked by Penny in some way. Everyone else was still standing in endless lines, clutching their forms and waiting, while Quentin had found himself walking across the white sands of a tropical beach to a cottage covered in purple flowers, almost instantly.

His dad had settled himself very comfortably and minimally on this small island and was clearly living the dream, which might have made Quentin sad, if it had been possible to hold on to sadness. The closest he had come to feeling something painful since arriving was when he saw the look on his dad’s face when Quentin walked through his door.

“I’m pleased to see you, of course I am,” he said, gruffly, after the hugs and the greetings. “It’s just that I’d hoped you’d – have a whole life, after I was gone.”

“I know,” said Quentin. “But I – I had the chance to do something good, something important, and I took it.”

“Something stupid and brave and heroic, huh?” said his dad. “Oh, curly Q. You always wanted to charge off and fight the dragons. I guess you managed it at last.”

That was all they’d said about it, in the time – it wasn’t clear how much time, weeks or months, perhaps – that they’d spent together. Mostly their talk was light: look at this flower, water’s fine today, shall we grill something for dinner? There were other people, if people was still the right word, on the island, in houses scattered in greenery along the shore, who dropped by for a conversation or a game of chess, but mostly they were on their own.

It was a beautiful place. After a while Quentin had felt slightly restless, though, and had set out to explore the other islands. It was a miniature archipelago: twenty, thirty small islands scattered in a blue sea, like everyone’s coral island fantasy. Quentin had picked his favourite, which was about a mile round, and taken over a small wooden frame house with a porch, just off its largest beach. It was the only house on that particular island. He was pretty sure that he could have chosen to change or rebuild it, but he liked it fine, whether because it had effectively redesigned itself around him when he wasn’t looking, or whether because he tended to adapt to things, as a rule. Smaller stuff certainly did adjust for him. The drinks he wanted appeared in the fridge: food, though he didn’t actually _need_ to eat, was there when he wanted it. When he’d thought about the pleasure of lying in bed and hearing a tropical storm pass over, it had rained all the following night. That kind of thing.

The island was simple, and pleasant. It was pleasant to feel the sun, to drink this Coke, to experience the coldness of the water. It was pleasant to have nothing to do, even though the old Quentin might have found this intolerable. In contrast, it was actively hard to feel miserable about anything, to think about regrets. Even to recall the past. Quentin missed his friends, he would have said, he missed doing magic, he missed stuff about Earth, but he didn’t _think_ about it all that much. Mostly his thoughts were very present, very zen: water, beach, sun and shade, patterns of light on the sea, on the sand. It was a little like Fillory and its opium, only far more so, like being relaxed and mildly high the entire time, relaxed in a way that Quentin had never known, at least without serious chemical assistance.

But he was still curious. The island was amazing, but it wasn’t quite his place. When he’d arrived, at the station, he hadn’t had the courage to ask for anyone other than his dad, though somewhere at the back of his mind was the question about whether the other family he’d once had might be here somewhere. Whether there was a part of this place for Fillory. Whether Arielle might be there, whether the other Eliot – his mind stuttered a bit over the name – the Eliot he’d grown old with, might be with her. Whether his son would be there. Whether he himself – but his mind slid away from that.

There were others he could have looked for too. People from Brakebills. People from college, from school. Other people who had died by violence. He could ask to see that they were OK, that they were happy, as happy as he was. They could….hang out. Compare notes.

But for a start, he simply wanted to explore a little. It wasn’t hard. He thought about taking a boat to the mainland, and walked to the pier on the next beach over, and there was a boat. It was a small blue-painted rowboat. Quentin wasn’t good at rowing, but he’d always liked the idea of it. Here, it seemed much simpler. The boat glided across the sunlit sea, with satisfying motion. And just when Quentin was starting to find rowing a little dull, the haze in front of him resolved into a skyline, the start of a cityscape. A very active one: there were at least a dozen fantastic buildings under construction, some with architecture that didn’t so much appear to defy gravity as straight-up defy it with extreme prejudice. Quentin frowned at the buildings taking shape. That one looked like a futuristic Arc de Triomphe tilted 45 degrees off kilter, the one over there, with odd blobs and pinnacles he’d have said was – Gaudi? Only larger. And the one on his right, a shell-like structure of waves and curves – hadn’t there been that architect who died young whose work looked liked that? Hadid? Zaha Hadid? Was that right?

He pulled up at a dock, on a wide boulevard lined with tall houses painted in pastel colours, and climbed up the ladder. There was a sign at the top.

“Welcome to Elysium Sector 534F: Late Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Earth: Cities of the West,” he read. “This sector is undergoing revision and updating. Tourists or potential denizens from another world and/or historical period should register with the Visitor Office for their orientation. Please enjoy your time with us.”

Well, seemed like he was in the right sector, Quentin thought, blinking. He tied up the rowboat, in case anyone else wanted it, and set off towards the taller buildings. Once he got a couple of blocks away from the ocean, the streets he was walking through turned into classic brownstones, with pots of flowers outside, curtains blowing through open windows, and people sitting on their stoops, reading, playing music, just sitting. It was like his favourite parts of New York, or Boston. On the corners, there were small, quaint cafes or old-fashioned restaurants with checked tablecloths, people at the outdoor tables, some eating or with a glass of wine. Most of them were on their own, though a few were in groups, talking quietly. 

On the fourth corner he came to, there was a bookstand, with a woman in a neat dark green uniform. It resembled the uniforms people had been wearing at the station, when he’d arrived, though it was also different in ways he couldn’t pinpoint; colour or style, or something.

“Good morning!” said the woman, smiling at him warmly as he hesitated. “Can I help you? Are you new to this sector?”

“I’m visiting,” said Quentin. “Though I’m not, umm, a tourist. I mean, I lived in New York, until – recently – so…”

“Wonderful,” she said. “Then I’m sure you’ll find some things are familiar. Here.” She passed him a leaflet, which unfolded into an artistically drawn street map. “We have two new museums, and the theatre district opens this week! Can I give you a programme for the first performances?”

“Um, sure,” said Quentin. The woman tucked a glossy brochure into a canvas bag and passed it to him.

“Just ask for the Housing office if you plan to stay awhile, or check yourself into a hotel, they’re on the map,” she said. “Oh, and Jeanine Park is new too. Take a left at the next junction and you can’t miss it. _Everyone_ loves it.”

“Thanks,” said Quentin, giving her a little wave, and he headed the way she had indicated.

Not far off, the streets opened up and he was in front of a large green space, enclosed by grand curlicued wrought-iron railings: this was, obviously, the new park. It seemed to be late springtime. Cherry trees and magnolias were in flower, with drifts of petals on the paths. The grass was soft velvety green. Birds sang in the trees, which were unfurling fresh green leaves. Tulips and hyacinths were bright in the neatly tended flowerbeds. A fountain played, at the end of the path in front of him. Lured in, Quentin passed through the gates and wandered for a long while. The park seemed to go on and on, in a series of interconnected gardens. It was a bit like Central Park, and a bit like the Brakebills gardens – there was a sign to a hedge maze at one point – and bit like the fantasy English gardens he’d dreamed about: wisteria-lined stone archways, marble-edged ponds full of carp, a chamomile lawn that gave off a sharp scent under his feet, box hedges, worn statues. It gave Quentin a feeling that might have been nostalgia, the sweet rather than the painful kind. As though he might turn a corner and see Eliot, young and pristine and astonishingly beautiful, casually stretched out on the grass, waiting for him.

After a measureless space of straying through the gardens, charmed, Quentin thought about sitting somewhere pleasant, and his steps took him towards an enticing smell of coffee. By one of the fountains, in a gravelled square, there was a stone building with wide French doors, and a sign saying ‘Café-Bar’ above them. There were wooden tables and chairs outside, shaded by umbrellas, with cushions on them in bright jewel colours. Quentin sat at one. There was a girl at the next table, about his age, sketching, and an elderly couple holding hands at another.

“Hi!” said a waiter, or someone Quentin supposed was a waiter, approaching. He had a bright red beard and freckles, and looked a couple of years younger than Quentin. “Can I get you anything?”

“What do you have?” said Quentin, curious.

“Well, we specialize in coffee, artisan gin cocktails, and champagne,” said the man, grinning at Quentin. “There’s a new gin brewery right over there – ” he gestured, “and we use the herbs from the garden too. But I can pretty much do you whatever you want to drink, just ask!”

“Maybe just a black coffee?” said Quentin. “Though that all sounds – great. Are you – do you work here?” What he wanted to ask was: are you one of the dead and how did you die, since you seem pretty young, but that seemed impolite.

“I just started,” said the guy. “There’s a new system – you can sign up to do whatever you wanted to do when you were alive, and they’ll find you a spot. I was an accountant, can you believe it? I used to fucking _fantasize_ about walking out and setting up my own bar. Three car pile-up on the freeway, and here I am!”

“Oh,” said Quentin. “Great. I mean – ”

“That’s why this is so good too,” said the guy, gesturing towards the gardens. “You wouldn’t believe how many people wanted to work in construction or garden design. Things are getting built like lightning round here. It’s a whole new era, praise be to Hades!”

Quentin frowned. He hadn’t – well, he hadn’t thought about Hades, though he supposed it did make sense.

“Anyway, I’ll get your coffee!” said the guy. “Maybe a cocktail after, huh? It only gets you drunk if you _want_ to feel drunk _,_ so no harm.”

Quentin smiled tentatively at him. It was – not unpleasant, to interact with someone about his age. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made small talk with a friendly stranger. Every time he’d been in a park recently, he’d either been in a secret crisis meeting or trying to stop a monster from _killing_ friendly strangers. Was Quentin himself supposed to have become more easily sociable though, in Elysium? If so, he wasn’t sure it had worked. He thought of his dad, and sighed. Maybe it simply didn’t take, for the Coldwaters.

 “Oh, here. Do you mind helping out with this questionnaire?” the waiter said. “You’re recent, right? I mean – sorry, if you don’t want to talk about it, but you look kind of 2010s.”

“Yes, I –  ” said Quentin. “Questionnaire?”

“Lot of changes going on,” said the guy cheerfully. “All to the good. When I first arrived, I was in, like, a 1980s Holiday Inn for months. Now you just go to Housing and they’ll find you the place you want. I got a hot tub and cool roommates! The questions are, like, what would _you_ want to see here? Pen?” He passed one over.

Quentin began to fill in the questionnaire. It was intriguing. Some of the questions were quite straightforward, like which decades had his favourite style of architecture. Some were odder. One asked him if Elysium should feature more (a) sex, (b) drugs, (c) rock and roll, (d) all of the above or (e) none of the above. Quentin skipped it. One asked if he thought porn should be allowed, with a whole ‘skip three pages and then fill out four more about your preferences’ if he ticked ‘Yes.’ One suggested he list the top ten dead musicians he’d like to hear in live concert. And another asked him to write down everything he expected to smell in a city, and then rank the scents in order of preference.

He’d got more or less to the end, and set it down, when the waiter came back.

“Thanks, man,” he said. “Can I get you something else?” He picked up the questionnaire, glanced casually at the front page, and then audibly gasped. Quentin looked up at him with something approaching alarm.

“Quentin Coldwater?” said the waiter, faintly. “I mean, that’s definitely your name? Died a couple of months ago?”

“Yes,” said Quentin. “Is something wrong? I – ”

“Fuck me,” said the guy, gazing at Quentin, his mouth open. “Look, I don’t know who you are but you are really fucking important, there’s posters and shit up about you all over town – the powers that be _really_ want to find you – I’ve got to report this right away.”

“Wait – ” said Quentin. “It’s a mistake, I’m really not important…”

The waiter shrugged, backing away a few paces and taking a deep breath. “It’s Coldwater,” he shouted at the sky. “Quentin Coldwater! He’s in Sector 534F, Jeanine Park.”

There was a ringing noise, and before Quentin could gather himself together to run away, or even to think about whether he wanted to run away, a green-suited Underworld employee had appeared before him, an older woman with waves of set glossy blond hair and bright blue eyes, like something out of Steel Magnolias. She took out something that looked like a supermarket scanner and pointed it at Quentin, and it beeped.

“We’re most grateful,” she said to the waiter. “We will be sure to inform His Highness of your assistance.”

“Happy to help!” said the waiter. “Jeez, I can’t believe he just walked up to my bar!”

“Look, I think there’s been a mistake – ” Quentin tried again. The woman had a nametag on, Amanda.

“Oh no,” she said, smiling at him brightly. “You’re definitely the right one. If you’ll follow me.” She took a gentle but firm hold of his arm, and without any warning, they were somewhere else, still in the city but now in a wide street lined with grand buildings, standing outside the grandest, a white-painted affair with a portico and gleaming windows.

Quentin looked around a little desperately. The street was empty. If he tried to run, he was pretty sure she’d blip into existence in front of him without turning a hair. He very much did not want to meet Hades, or Our Lady Underground, come to that. But if it was the gods that wanted him, probably on the grounds of being an accomplice to murdering a number of their kind, he definitely didn’t want to be dragged in front of them by some minion, either.

He walked up the steps, feeling doomed in a very detached way. Amanda opened the door, and waited for him to pass through. There was a sort of – airport metal detector arch in front of him, incongruously placed in the entrance hallway. The building smelled of fresh paint and spring flowers, not the overpowering scent of lilies he recalled from the house with the shades, when he’d come there with Julia, so long ago.

“Once you pass through here, it removes the inertial dampeners,” said Amanda.

Quentin stared at her. “What did you say?” he said.

“Your emotions,” said Amanda. “Please be aware that His Highness the Prince Consort has undone the usual Underworld enchantments in this location, so you may experience some unsettling effects in relation to your overall mental and physical state.”

Quentin had no idea what she was talking about. She motioned to him and he stepped through the arch, and then staggered sideways. It was slightly like the emotion bottles, only less extreme: it was as though a film of plastic had been peeled off his mind, so that he was suddenly – feeling things again. Fear, and anxiety, and stress, and behind that an aching sadness, close under his skin.

“Glass of water?” said Amanda, holding one out, and surveying him with a frown.

Quentin took it, his hands trembling, and sipped it. It helped. He took a few deep breaths.

“Now follow me,” said Amanda. “His Highness has been so concerned, he’ll be delighted you were located.”

Quentin had no idea why Hades would be concerned about him, it sounded highly ominous. He trailed after Amanda, clutching the banister, on legs that felt weak, buffeted by feelings which wouldn’t quite settle down into a coherent form.

At the top of the stairs, they turned left, and Amanda threw open a grand door. Quentin had the brief impression of a large, bright and very grand room, with plasterwork and a chandelier, polished wood floors and elegantly arranged furniture. Opposite them was a giant shiny desk, with another pair of green-suited people hovering deferentially beside it.

And then he saw that the man behind the desk was Eliot. He was looking up at the green suits, twirling a pen and in the middle of saying something. He was wearing a very dark grey suit that even Quentin could recognize at a glance as exceptionally stylish, with a dark patterned shirt. It was definitely, unquestionably him: Eliot of Whitespire, Eliot of Brakebills, not something else wearing him poorly and cheaply. Everything about him seemed sharply-defined and bright, so bright that Quentin both wanted to stare at him forever, and to look away.

“Sire – ” said Amanda, just as Quentin blurted “Eliot – ”

Eliot turned to the door, and his expression changed so fast that Quentin couldn’t follow it, from surprise to pleasure to something that Quentin couldn’t quite read. He started getting up from the desk.

“Oh my God,” said Quentin, “You’re dead. Oh, God.” He had assumed – he’d _seen_ Eliot, injured but definitely alive – what had happened, had it all been for nothing–

He could feel himself going limp, at the thought, as though he might just lie down on the gleaming parquet, curl into a ball, and stay there, for eternity.

“Quentin,” said Eliot, coming towards him. “Thank all the gods, they finally fucking found you – ” He gripped Quentin’s arms, looking him over.

“Everyone out,” he said, without looking around. Quentin stared up at him. Eliot’s eyes were so clear, such beautiful colours. He’d known this, hadn’t he? A rush of painful or pleasurable feeling washed over him. He didn’t notice the others leaving, but when he glanced away for a moment, they had gone.

“It’s,” Eliot swallowed. “It’s really good to see you, Q. I was starting to think you might be – lost. I thought I’d – ” He broke off, abruptly.

“Eliot,” said Quentin. He’d thought he would never hear Eliot’s voice again. He might just keep saying his name, for a while. “Eliot. How did you – why are you –”

“Oh,” said Eliot, with understanding. “I’m not dead. Here, listen.” He folded Quentin into a hug, against his chest. Quentin wrapped his arms around him without thinking. Eliot’s chest rose and fell against his own, his heart – oh. His heart was beating. Quentin pulled back a little and set a hand on it. He didn’t notice the silence of his own heart, it wasn’t something that…registered, somehow. But now he was touching Eliot, Eliot felt so _different_ , pulsing with energy, with movement. Quentin looked up and met his gaze, and Eliot was watching him with an expression that was almost afraid.

“Can we sit down?” Eliot said. “I would – God, I want to – hang onto you forever, but I need to talk to you, and it’s not, umm. There’s some stuff. That I have to tell you, quickly. Here.” He took Quentin’s hand and led him over to a dark velvet chaise longue that stood in the bay window, and sat down, keeping hold of Quentin’s hand.

“If you’re – alive,” said Quentin. “How is that – what’s all  _this_?” He gestured, at the room, with its desk and paintings and sleek laptop and drinks cabinet.

“Well,” said Eliot. “It’s kind of a long story, so – ”

There was a knock on the door, and Amanda opened it and stuck her head round.

“Sire,” she said. “The King has arrived in the city apartment and requests your presence. The performance starts in one hour.”

“Yes,” said Eliot. “I know. Could you tell him I’ve been held up, and that I’ll be there soon? Tell him I’m sorry and I’ll make it up to him later.”

Amanda inclined her head, and shut the door again.

“Eliot?” said Quentin.

Eliot bit his lip. “Don’t worry about it for a moment,” he said. “Here’s the – the million dollar question. Would you like to be alive again?”

Quentin looked at him. Eliot’s face was tight and unhappy, but he seemed absolutely sincere, in a very un-Eliotish way.

“Please,” he said. “Quentin – I can get you back. To Earth. To live your life. But you have to want to leave.” He gripped Quentin’s hand so hard it almost hurt.

“I – ” said Quentin, and then he stopped, looking down at their clasped hands, because he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. He’d thought – he’d thought that everything was over. That he wouldn’t have to fight any more. That he wouldn’t have to try, every single day, to keep going. That he wouldn’t have to feel this familiar wrenching sadness at the way everything had turned out, at how hard everything was, how unfair. He’d wanted – something like peace. Something like sitting in a park watching the fountains play, dangling your feet off the pier.

It hurt so much, to _feel_ like this. But Eliot’s hand on his was real, in a way that nothing else had been real, for however long he’d been in the Underworld. Eliot was looking at him like he really cared, as though he could hardly breathe while he waited for Quentin’s answer. As though he’d _missed_ Quentin. Eliot and – and everyone else. Julia. Alice. Margo. Kady and her hedge witches. Josh’s brownies. Penny 23’s bemusement at them all. Quentin missed them. He missed them, now that he had his feelings back, with a pain so acute that he was amazed it hadn’t jump-started his long-dead heart.

He drew a breath in, and out. Except it wasn’t a real breath. It was imitation, like everything here. It was lovely and perfect and none of it hurt, and none of it would ever make him feel bad. And none of it would ever make him feel the undertow of longing, the hopeless want, that he felt at seeing Eliot again.

“Q?” said Eliot, tentative and unsure.

“OK,” said Quentin. Then he looked up. “I mean – yes. I would leave. Though – ”

“I thought you were going to say no,” said Eliot, and then his expression crumpled, a word that Quentin had never believed was meant literally until he’d seen Eliot fall apart, once or twice or twenty times in a past lifetime. Eliot let go of Quentin and put his face in his hands, and then when Quentin reached out clumsily to pat him, he folded forward and wrapped his arms round Quentin, hiding his face in his shoulder at an awkward angle and struggling for breath.

“El,” said Quentin, stroking his back, feeling entirely ineffectual. “El, you need to tell me what this is all about.”

Eliot shivered all over, and then he sat up. He let go of Quentin and ran a hand through his hair, smoothed down his suit lapels.

“I’m fine,” he said, in the especially determined voice he used when things were so far from fine that the distance was immeasurable. From long experience, Quentin knew that the more he pushed, when Eliot was talking this way, the more likely it was that Eliot would storm off to the village to get drunk with the local lads, and end up reeling in at five am, drunk and loose-limbed, to collapse on Quentin and apologise, and kiss sloppily at the back of Quentin’s neck, breath scented with the local plum brandy, until Quentin –

Quentin shook his head, to dispel memories that he’d barely known he had.

“You agreed,” said Eliot. “Verbal contract. You can’t take it back. Thank fuck.” He took another long shuddering breath. “Hang on.” He stood up, using the back of the chaise longue as leverage, and walked slowly over to the desk. There was an old-fashioned rotary phone there, and he dialled a number.

“Amanda,” he said. “Get an urgent message to Adiyodi, Underworld Library, Secrets Taken to the Grave division. Should read: ‘Tell Alice – expect Q apartment get there asap. Message Margo and Julia.’” He listened for a moment. “Yes, that’s right, just add my seal. Now, please.”

He set down the phone and looked at it for a moment. Then he came back over to Quentin.

“I’m going to try to send you direct to Kady’s penthouse,” he said. He reached out and tried to tuck Quentin’s hair behind his ear, though it was a little too short. He smoothed it absently, his mouth turning down at the corners.

“What’s happening?” said Quentin, quietly.

“You’re going home,” said Eliot. “Alice and the others will take care of you – it might be – surprising for a little while, but you’ll be OK.”

“I mean with _you_ , Eliot,” said Quentin.

Eliot sat back a little. Quentin couldn’t read his face. “I want to get you out of here before – ” he said. “And I – I kind of want to leave Margo to tell you all of this, because I’m a coward, but being a coward hasn’t worked out so well for me before, so… I’ll be quick. Sparknotes version, not the full Homeric epic. Persephone – Our Lady Underground – she was killed by the monster’s sister, I found that out once I got out of the hospital. And then, in a not-quite-coincidence, Margo and I bumped into Hades. And, umm, I signed a contract with him, where part of the deal is that you get to live. I spend…some time here, and some time on earth.”

“Our Lady Underground is _dead_?” Quentin interrupted. “Wait, wait. That woman you were talking to, Amanda. I thought she was talking about Hades or another god but it was you, wasn’t it? It was _you_. You’re, like – ” he looked around. “You’re a king, here?”

Eliot looked embarrassed. “Not as such,” he said. “They, umm, call me the Prince Consort, but I’m really more middle management, I – sort out disputes, manage new developments, that kind of thing. Here, stand up, there’s a very quick ritual…”

Quentin stood up obediently, letting Eliot tow him into a clear space on the parquet. He frowned. “But, Hades – ” he said.

Eliot had fetched some chalk from a desk drawer. He knelt and began drawing, swiftly, round Quentin, getting chalk on his smart suit.

“Don’t move,” he said. “Look, Margo has a notarized copy of the contract. That stuff she can go through.” He stood up and looked at what he’d drawn, critically.

“Eliot,” said Quentin. “Hold on. You’re not _coming_?”

Eliot was still looking down at the chalk symbols, but Quentin saw a spasm of something pass across his face.

“I can’t,” he said. “It’s only been three months. If – if everything is OK, I’ll see you in another three. You’ll – ” his mouth quirked, bitterly. “You’ll have Alice. I hope she’ll be there to meet you. I – I heard that you two got back together, just before…”

He moved his fingers, in a swift series of gestures, and the symbols started to glow, dimly and then brightening. He ran a hand through his curls, disarranging them. Quentin opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t think what he wanted to say. He had no idea what he felt about Alice, he hadn’t thought about it at all, not once, since he’d walked through that archway into the station.

“Fuck,” Eliot said suddenly, still examining the signs he’d drawn. “Fuck it, I promised myself I wouldn’t, but.” He met Quentin’s eyes. He looked scared. And he looked – he was staring at Quentin in a way that Quentin had once known and then lost forever, as though Quentin were astonishing, wonderful, desired.

“I can’t even touch you properly, here,” he said. “I can’t try to make you want me. I can’t – say the things I promised myself I’d say. And even if I could, it would be cheating because I know you’re not mine and I’m not yours, Q. I know I fucked up in every possible way and I’m so sorry, I wasn’t there and I let you die and I wasn’t smart enough to think of a better way out than this –”

The symbols were burning brighter and brighter.

“Eliot,” said Quentin. “What are you – ”

Eliot took a step back, shielding his eyes. “I don’t deserve to be forgiven,” he said. “But please, let me see you again if I get back – please be safe, Q, stay alive, tell Margo I –”

There was a flare of light so bright that Quentin ducked his head into his arms, involuntarily. He felt a seasick lurch, as though the floor had shifted beneath him, and when he opened his eyes, swaying, he was in the familiar, unfriendly surroundings of the penthouse, with Kady, Julia and Alice all staring at him with varying degrees of horror, and Margo in the background, arms folded.

He tried to step forward, then he felt his eyes roll back in his head, a wave of dizziness overtook him, and everything went black.

***

He woke up in the bed he’d been using, in the penthouse. The pillow under his head was one he knew, since he’d gone through all the others in the apartment trying to find one that wasn’t a giant feathery mass. The sheets smelled of the same laundry liquid too, and the light was coming through the blinds in the same direction. The feel of the sheets was both unbearably rough and amazingly real on his skin. He lay still and catalogued. His neck had a slight crick in it, and his back ached round the join with the centaurs’ magical wood, exactly where it always had, off and on, since that injury. His stomach felt flat, empty. His lips were dry. He was slightly too hot, in the bed. He would need to pee, some time soon. He was alive.

The door opened, and he opened his eyes to see who it was. It was Alice. She came over and sat on the bed next to him. He pulled himself up, with difficulty, so that he was half-sitting. He was wearing an old loose T-shirt that he’d kept under the pillow, and his underwear. He wondered who had undressed and dressed him, and where, or why, they’d kept his stuff.

“Hey,” she said softly.

Quentin wasn’t entirely sure his voice would work. “Hey,” he said, scratchily.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m – ” Quentin said. “I don’t know. Am I – this is real, right?”

Alice huffed out a half-laugh. “Yes,” she said. “We’re in the penthouse. It’s, umm, three months and nearly four weeks since you – ” She breathed in sharply. “Since you died, Q. You passed out for nearly ten hours. We were – we checked you over, with magic, in case anything was…wrong.”

Quentin took a couple of deep breaths, in and out. His body seemed to be working, in the way that it should. Alice was wearing a pinstripe suit, he noticed.

“You look like,” he said, “like a Librarian.” 

Alice sighed. “Acting Head Librarian,” she said. She sounded both rueful and proud. 

“Oh,” said Quentin. Now she mentioned it, he did remember that, but it hadn’t quite sunk in that it would really happen.

 “Julia?” he said.

“She’s here,” said Alice. “She wants to see you, if you want? Kady’s gone out, but Margo’s here too, she – umm, Eliot asked me to get her.”

Quentin tipped his head back, against the bedframe, and tried to put his memories together into a coherent order. Eliot had – that was right, Eliot had phoned that woman, he’d sent a message.

“Eliot,” he said. “You’ve spoken to him?”

Alice made a face. “No, we can’t reach him directly, but Penny 40 can sometimes pass on messages through the Library telegraph system,” she said. “When I heard.” She drew in a sharp breath, and pressed her lips together. “I thought it was too late,” she said. “All the books said. When someone’s been in the Underworld, that long, the odds are – they’re really long. I told Eliot. I’m sorry, Q. I was wrong. I’m so sorry.” Her voice faded, and she stared down at her hands, blinking.

“Hey,” said Quentin. Alice crying always made yawning panic open up inside him. He thought he ought to sit up further and try to – give her a hug, or something, but it seemed unmanageably complicated. “Alice. I’m here. It’s OK. No-one needs to apologize.” That brought back Eliot, watching Quentin leave and sounding so – desperate.

He was about to ask Alice about Eliot, when he registered that this might not be entirely tactful.

“Could I speak to Margo?” he said.

Alice’s face fell, in a way that made Quentin feel that this had also not been the most tactful question. She stood up, smoothing down her skirt.

“Of course. I mean, she’ll need to get back to Fillory soon, and I expect you want to know about. The – the contract.” She walked briskly to the door, and then stopped, her hand on it.

“I didn’t do enough,” she said, without turning round. Then she did turn round. There were tears on her cheeks. “I don’t expect anything from you, Q,” she said, awkwardly and in a rush. “I know you’ll take a while, recovering, but I want to be clear. I’m here for – whatever you need, if that’s OK.”

“I don’t think I know what I need,” he said.

Alice nodded, and tried to smile at him, watery. “It’s just amazing you’re here,” she said. “You look – you look better. Than you did.”

“I don’t care if he’s ready or not,” said Margo’s voice, loudly, from behind the door. “If he’s asleep, wake him up, I don’t give a shit, I need to fill him in. I’m on the fucking clock here, people, war and famine imminent, magical toad revolt, the works.”

“He’s awake,” said Alice. “I’ll – see you later, Q? I have meetings but I’ll be back this evening, and if you want me I’ll cancel, let anyone know.” She slipped out, letting Margo in. Margo stood and looked Quentin over, critically.

“Took you two long enough,” she said. “How is he? Is he OK?”

“Eliot?” said Quentin, inanely. “He seemed…” He wasn’t sure how to describe it. “I only saw him for like, a few minutes, it was a bit of a, a rush. He was OK. At least I think so. He had, like, this enormous office, and minions, and he was – bossing people around.”

Margo didn’t move at all, but Quentin felt her relax.

“And what about Hades?” she said.

“I didn’t see him,” said Quentin. “Eliot didn’t say – ”

“Hold up,” said Margo. She came and sat down on the bed, closer than Alice. She studied Quentin. “You still look like shit, Coldwater, but you’re definitely in the land of the living and you’d better stay that way. I’m not losing any more of my people.”

Quentin nodded. Margo was so lovely and so scary, and so fucking _important_ , how could the Underworld have made him not-think about her, for so long?

 “OK, enough sweet talking,” said Margo. “What, exactly, did Eliot tell you about his contract?”

“Umm,” said Quentin. “Not…very much? He said that you had all the details.”

Margo huffed out a laugh. “I’m going to fucking kill him if he makes it back,” she said. She surveyed Quentin. “Are you going to cry if we do this now? I mean, I’m happy to see you, Q, but you know I hate being fucking cried on.”

“I don’t know,” said Quentin, honestly. “I don’t know what you’re going to say.”

Margo frowned. “I got one of Alice’s indentured slaves to type up two copies of the full contract, my excellent subclauses and all, and I’ll leave one with you. Bottom line, Coldwater: Eliot signed his life away for you and for me, and you’d better not fucking forget it. Deal is, he spends six months of every year in the Underworld, then we get him back for six months. Oh, and while he’s there? He’s fucking Hades. And if we do get him back and you give him a hard time about it –”

“Wait, what?” said Quentin. “He’s – ” That brief scene in the Underworld tilted, and came into focus in a new light. “Oh my God,” he said.

“Yeah,” said Margo. “Before you hit the panic button: I didn’t have much time, but subclause numero uno says that the contract is annulled if Eliot is physically or mentally harmed against his will.”

Quentin stared at her. This was all – too much, for right now.

“Shit, you don’t look well,” said Margo. “I shouldn’t have told you. Take some time, Q. Get better, read the details, let me know if you want to talk. Who do you need – no, wait, you need Julia, right?”

She went to the door and called, and Quentin heard the murmur of voices. Then Margo came back in, swept over to the bed, and bent down and kissed him, surprisingly, on the mouth. She drew back.

“It’s been a long three months,” she said. “I want a moment by moment description if you’re up for it. Write it all down and get Penny to drop by Fillory, if it’s easier. But he is OK?”

“I thought so,” Quentin said. “Margo – he was saying, when he sent me back, I think he said, ‘Tell Margo’ – there wasn’t time – ”

“It’s fine,” Margo said. She smiled, a little. “I know.”

***

Over the next week, Quentin spent a lot of time in bed, with terrifyingly smart women sweeping in and telling him terrifying things, hugging him, and then sweeping away again. Sometimes they brought Josh’s cupcakes with them. He lay in bed and remembered Eliot, saying, ‘I can’t try to make you want me’, Eliot breaking down because he thought Quentin would choose – would choose to stay dead, forever. After Eliot had given up his own life, to give Quentin that choice. He thought about that dead guy in the café, with his hot tub and his new job, and about Eliot sweet-talking dead architects into building their fantasies in Elysium. He thought about how he could have managed to forget Eliot’s mom’s name and how much she loved flowers, and all the evenings she’d spent watching gardening programmes with her youngest son. His newly-beating heart hurt. Who else knew that, about Eliot?

Though everything he’d done, in the last awful months before he’d died, had been to get Eliot back, he’d never wholly believed it was possible. He’d deliberately shut all his hope, all his feelings about Eliot away in a triple-chained chest in a corner of his mind, in order to get through every day. And now, five minutes with Eliot – not even minutes, just two seconds of Eliot looking at him the way no-one had ever looked at Quentin, before or since – and it was as though someone had taken an axe and smashed it into pieces, and Eliot was all he could think of.

Except that Eliot hadn’t simply said that he’d wanted Quentin. He’d said: I’m not yours. Because he wasn’t, was he? Quentin curled up on his side under the covers and seesawed between wildly different emotions. Sick terror that Eliot was letting himself be – that he was being hurt – because he’d never have said, Quentin knew that as well as he knew anything, and he’d read Margo’s subclause seventeen times and it didn’t mean that Eliot couldn’t _consent_ to being hurt, or treated badly, or, or, a whole load of things that Quentin didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t stop thinking about.

And on the other side: Margo had, reluctantly, described Hades as hot and as ‘sort of Eliot’s type’, after Quentin had got Penny to fetch her and then shamelessly used his pathetic state to push and push. So maybe Eliot – really liked him. It was Hades who was his partner for life, under this deal. His husband, in effect: Quentin knew an otherworldly marriage contract when he saw one. Maybe they were having mind-altering sex and romantic dates in between Eliot getting to do a great job sorting out the Underworld – a job he was good at, a job that gave him something he wanted. Maybe Eliot wouldn’t want to come back from this. Even if Quentin hadn’t been imagining the way Eliot had looked at him, three months was a long time.

And on the – the third side, he was furious. How could Eliot have _done_ this to himself? How could he have thought it was worth it? How could he have shoved Quentin back to earth without even _explaining_? He would have been furious with Margo too, except that she was so obviously already furious with herself. And at least she’d been there, trying to stop him.

Some time in the second week, when Quentin had graduated to getting out of bed and wandering round the apartment without everything feeling too much, Alice showed up and persuaded him out for coffee. They sat outside and Alice told him about Library politics and the latest crisis, and Quentin nodded at the right spots and thought instead about the scents of the city around him.

After a while, Alice sighed, and set down her cup, pointedly.

“You’re not really listening, are you? It’s OK. I know you’re still recovering. It’s just good to see you – ”

“Dressed?” said Quentin. “Out of bed?” He attempted a smile.

Alice half-smiled back. “Well, yes.” She looked down, fiddling with her hair, and then looked up and met his eyes squarely.

“Look, I wanted to say – I’ll always love you, you know that. But when we were kind of getting back together, things were crazy. And while you were gone, I. Well. Eliot and I – went out for drinks, a couple of times. We talked. So I – ” she took a deep breath – “I mean, I heard a bit more about what happened with you two, when you were on the mosaic quest, and after.”

There was a shade of reproach in her voice. Quentin hunched his shoulders, defensively.

“And – it’s not like Eliot told me, but it’s not like he needed to tell me, because it was really, really obvious how he felt about you.”

Quentin tried to interrupt, but Alice was carrying on.

“I’m not saying you feel the same about him, Q. I’m saying that it made me think about us. About – how we’ve both changed, since we were younger. I had a lot of time to think, and I think that I’m not the right person for you. I might have been once, but I’m not now. For one thing, I really fucking love my job, and you hate the Library, don’t you?”

Quentin sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry. I hate everything about it, and I still can’t believe you’re working for them.”

Alice half-laughed. “We never did get each other’s interests,” she said. “I don’t think we want the same things out of life, either. Eliot was so – he told me about the life you had in that other timeline, and he was so fucking sad, and all I could think was, that would have been my worst nightmare. I need work, Quentin. I need books, and research, and things that I can learn and change. And I don’t need a relationship. Not right now, anyway. I can do this on my own.”

“OK,” said Quentin. “You’re – breaking up with me?”

“I guess,” said Alice. “If we were ever even together. I know I promised anything you wanted, and I’m so sorry –”

“I get it,” said Quentin. “I mean, I’m not sure you’re right about Eliot, but – I feel kind of weird talking about it with you, especially with him…. I’d like – I’d like us to be friends, I think. I missed you. I want us to, I don’t know, hang out? I swear I’ll try to sympathize about your work.”

“I’d like that,” said Alice. She smiled at him properly. “I’d love that, actually.”

Quentin leaned back in his seat, feeling immensely lighter. He liked Alice. He really liked her. She was incredibly clever, and sweet in a prickly way, and hot. He was kind of sad that he wouldn’t get to sleep with her again, though mostly relieved, since he wasn’t sure he felt up to sleeping with anyone.

Weeks passed. Fillory was invaded by a toad army from outer space, or something, and Margo was on the front line and unable to come by and tell Quentin the story about she and Eliot and Hades in Whitespire for the tenth time. Kady invited him to join the hedge witch consortium, and he declined. It was pretty clear that they were at odds with the Library, and he and Alice were getting along well, all things considered, so he didn’t want to end up as some kind of double agent.

Julia was back studying at Brakebills, for an advanced theoretical degree. She was the one Quentin most worried about, though she seemed – more or less alright. She told Quentin she wasn’t sleeping with Penny 23, but the two of them seemed to disappear into her room a lot, emerging twelve hours later looking tired and happier, so perhaps it was only a matter of time. Josh and Fen were on the front lines too, but a variety of cryptic messages and baked goods arrived via the bunny post service every day or two.

More weeks passed. Quentin signed up for therapy with a Brakebills graduate. Both Welters teams in her year had been killed bloodily when a spell went wrong in the final tournament, entire school watching, so he felt that she got where he was coming from. He saw a Brakebills-approved doctor, and tried out some new meds. He ate salads. He took Kady’s dog for walks in the park, and after a while he was able to sit down and look around and think about the Underworld park, Eliot’s park, and how beautiful it had been, without having to go back to the apartments immediately and stay in bed for two days straight.

He was doing better: everyone knew he was doing better, he was – glad to be alive, at least. Admittedly, not even his therapist knew that he was basically crying himself to sleep over losing his ex-boyfriend to the god of Hell every night, but other than that. He ticked every day off, on a calendar. And when he did, he thought about Margo doing the same. Thinking about whether Eliot was studying a calendar, in the Underworld, was too hard.

***

Quentin had been jittering round the apartment since morning, essentially, with everyone looking at him sideways and then staying out of his way.  Julia had asked him to come with her to Brakebills, today, to help with her newest experiment, swearing she’d have him back by mid-afternoon. Brakebills wasn’t close enough, though. If something went wrong and he was stuck in the wards there, or if there was an accident, or a disaster: he might not get back in time. Alice and Kady had a combined Library/hedge committee meeting, which promised to be a riot of tension and hopefully wouldn’t end in violence. Penny 23 had wisely vanished for the morning.

Quentin tried reading, he tried going for a walk, he tried lying quietly on the bed doing the exercises his therapist had recommended. None of it made the slightest difference to his circling thoughts. He was going to tell Eliot how angry he was at him. No, he was going to tell Eliot he loved him, and _then_ tell him how angry he was. He was going to hug him, like a friend, maybe even a manly handshake. He was going to – punch him in the face, for being such an idiot. He was going to beg Eliot to take him straight home and fuck him. He was – he had absolutely no idea, what he was going to do. And a large part of him was almost certain he didn’t need to know, because Eliot wasn’t going to be there.

Penny went to fetch Margo at lunchtime. They landed in the living room and Margo immediately looked round and caught Quentin’s eye, where he was leaning against the counter, arms folded around himself, not even pretending to be doing anything other than waiting for her.

“Time?” she said.

“1:15,” said Quentin, without needing to look at the clock.

“Yeah, exactly like I told you,” said Penny. “The five times you asked.” He looked between them. “You guys need to go get a couple of drinks. Get out of here. Take the edge off.”

“Excellent fucking plan,” said Margo. “Let me change into my earth wardrobe and some warmer clothes, and we’ll get on that. Q?”

Quentin hunched his shoulders. “Sure, I – I’m going fucking crazy here, Margo, what if he – ”

“Oh God,” said Penny. “Spare me. See you in a few hours.” He disappeared.

“He’ll be there, Q,” said Margo. “He promised _me_. If he’s not, it’s because something or someone” – she put a slight edge on the ‘someone’ – “is stopping him, in which case you and I will literally raise hell. OK?”

“OK,” said Quentin. “OK. I’ll, umm, wait here.”

Margo took a long time changing, but eventually she re-emerged, looking Quentin over.

“That’s what you’re wearing?” she said.

Quentin looked down at himself. He was wearing a very worn T-shirt, and old shirt and sweater, and his most comfortable jeans. It was the closest to pyjamas he could get and still leave the house without embarrassment.

“Should I change?” he said. He had a sudden flash of Eliot in the Underworld, how well-dressed he’d been; how utterly at home Eliot was in a sharp suit. His stomach ached.

Margo rolled her eyes at him. “I’m not even sure they’ll let you in a bar, looking like that. Have you even shaved?”

“Umm,” said Quentin. He stroked his chin.

“Jesus, Coldwater, you’re a fucking mess. Show some respect. Go shave, shower, brush your teeth, whatever. Now. I need a couple of Bellinis and no-one here ever restocks the fucking champagne.”

When Quentin got out of the shower, Margo was in his room, going through his wardrobe. She tossed him a clean shirt and a different pair of jeans, surveyed him critically as he clutched the towel closer around him, and then left him to it. Quentin dressed as fast as possible, and then glanced at himself in the mirror: he looked pale, and scared, and he couldn’t really tell about the clothes, though he guessed maybe Margo had been right about shaving and washing his hair.

Margo took him to a horrible hotel bar, he didn’t notice what it was called. They sat at the counter, which had a large clock above it, and she ordered them both cocktails. She clinked her glass against his, and then downed hers in three gulps and signalled to the bartender. Quentin shouldn’t have been drinking, on his meds. He sipped slowly.

“Any news from here?” said Margo. “That I actually need to care about, I mean.”

“Not much,” said Quentin. “I could tell you about the shit going on with the Library and the hedges? If we’re trying to, you know, kill time.”

Margo tilted her empty glass, regretfully. “If I start talking about the problems we’re having in fucking Fillory I’ll have downed the bottle,” she said. “So sure. Make it good.”

By mutual silent agreement, they left the bar an hour before they needed to be at the station, which was immediately across the road, having an extensive discussion slash fight about where Eliot would arrive as they went. As they entered the station Quentin broke off, paused, dithered a moment, and then went over and bought a bunch of roses. They had looked tasteful and romantic at the flower-stand, but when he walked back to Margo with them they looked giant, very pink, and very conspicuous. Quentin glared at her, daring her to say something, and she shrugged and raised an eyebrow.

“He’ll be on the _main fucking concourse_ ,” she said, again, taking his arm and pulling him after her. “I was fucking there, Coldwater. We agreed.”

“You told _me_ you said ‘Grand Central’,” said Quentin. “He can’t just fucking appear out of thin air here! Look!” He gestured round at all the people.

“That’s why we have _magic_ ,” said Margo.

Eventually Quentin caved, not surprisingly, and they spent the last half hour standing and waiting, agonizingly. Margo was scrolling through Instagram, occasionally snorting at something. Quentin watched everything around them. The time might not be exact, Eliot could be anywhere. His hand was damp on the crinkled plastic of the roses.

His and Margo’s phones beeped, simultaneously. Margo took his arm, in a death grip. Quentin looked around, frantically. And – without ever seeming to _appear_ , Eliot was simply there, coming from the direction of the platforms, only a few yards away. Margo made a sound, and Quentin gripped his stupid flowers tighter. Eliot looked around, saw them, and froze. He looked extraordinarily handsome and very nervous, and Quentin’s heart leaped, in another of those metaphors he had never imagined might be literal. Eliot walked over to them. Quentin detached Margo gently, took a clumsy half-step forward, pushed the roses at him, so that he had to take them, and then shoved him in the chest, hard. Eliot staggered back a step.

“Mixed messages, Q, Jesus,” he said. His voice was rough.

“You and Hades?” Quentin said. “And you didn’t even _tell_ me?”

Eliot’s expression went guilty, though the corners of his mouth were turning up. He shifted the roses in front of him.

“In my defence, things were very rushed. I was trying to get you out of there before he showed up and caused trouble,” he said. “We didn’t have time for explanation.”

“You made that fucking artisan gin bar!” said Quentin. “You gave that guy a job! You named the park after your mom! The fucking theatre district, that was _you_.”

“Theatre district?” said Margo. Eliot looked over at her, and smiled, slowly and blindingly.

“Are you mad at me too?” he said.

“Always,” said Margo. “I was quite fucking clear about that.” She came over and Eliot hugged her, tightly, kissing her hair. Quentin folded his arms and swallowed, hard. He was about to start crying, right here in the middle of Grand Central Station. Eliot glanced at him.

“Could we have a moment, Bambi?” he said.

Margo nodded. “See you back at the bar,” she said. “In ten.” She gave Quentin a two-second glance that conveyed several paragraphs of very explicit threats, and strode away.

“Q,” said Eliot, and he sounded – tentative. Hopeful. “You’re really here. You brought me flowers. You – ”

He stepped forward, into Quentin’s space, and bent down over him. Quentin looked up at him and Eliot reached out and stroked one hand down the side of his face. Quentin breathed in, sharply, at the newness and oldness of that gesture.

“I’m so fucking glad to see you,” said Eliot softly. “I know you’re angry. I know I totally deserve it. Can I kiss you anyway, just once?”

“I’m _so_ angry,” said Quentin, feeling himself start to smile helplessly, and he reached up to pull Eliot down. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a long and mostly domestic epilogue to come. But it may be a fair while coming, so I'm marking this as finished in the meantime. [hetrez](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetrez/pseuds/hetrez) made this much better, and there are definitely a couple of crowdsourced jokes in here, thanks everyone. <3

Eliot intended to brush his lips against Quentin’s and draw back, maybe pull him into a hug. But Quentin pressed into the kiss, his mouth immediately opening, and there was no chance in hell or out of it that Eliot was going to turn that down; he slid a hand round Quentin’s neck, in a way that seemed uncannily familiar, and deepened the kiss.

Quentin’s mouth, his tongue on Eliot’s, the warmth everywhere their bodies met: it felt like being plugged into an electric current. Quentin was so _different_ than he’d been in the brief moments Eliot had spent with him in the Underworld, where, like all the dead souls, he’d seemed slightly washed-out, faded at the edges. Eliot had hardly been able to read him at all, and it had been terrifying.

Whereas the moment he’d set eyes on Quentin on the concourse, clutching his ridiculous and glorious bouquet like a comfort blanket, he’d seen twenty identifiable feelings pass across Quentin’s face as Eliot took four steps towards him; he’d seen that Quentin was looking thin, and fraught, and his hair was still shorter than Eliot liked it, but his eyes were lit up, he was in motion, he was alive.

Quentin pulled back for breath and made a low sound, and Eliot tangled his fingers in his hair and kissed him again, for that. He felt starving. The gods only knew why; Hades had been very determined that Eliot would leave for earth with Hades’ fingerprints all over, and indeed inside, him. He’d barely been able to move from the bed, only that morning, and now he felt as though this body – his same body, he’d assumed – hadn’t been touched in years, and had forgotten what it might feel like.

Someone wolf-whistled, and Quentin broke away, flushed. Eliot had forgotten where they were. He didn’t bother looking around. He looked at Quentin, stroking the back of his neck, not letting go.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said. “I’ve sort of – skipped a few steps here, in terms of my, umm, plans for when I saw you again. I’m not sorry, though. I want – I want to take you into a dark corner right now and kiss you until your legs give out. But I don’t know – Quentin. Q.  Is this OK? Is it too much? Are you, umm, single? You and Alice…”

Quentin licked his lips and Eliot heroically restrained himself from kissing him again.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, we broke up, a while back.”

“I – well. Since I’ve kind of given myself away already. I did hope for that. The tone of Alice’s memos – anyway.”

Quentin was frowning at him, adorably.

“I was angry,” he said.

“Which I absolutely deserve,” said Eliot, unable to stop himself from smiling at him.

 “Probably we ought to, umm, talk.”

“Yes,” said Eliot. “Actually, there’s one thing I have to say right now. In case Hades cheats, I get hit by a truck as we leave the building, and I still haven’t fucking said it. So,” he took a breath. “You should know that I don’t just want – “ Quentin was looking at him, wary and puzzled, and he was so important, and so dear, and unlike all of Eliot’s fantasies, he was really there. “I don’t just _want_ you. I love you and I kind of always have. Telling you I didn’t want us to try again, after the mosaic, has been _certified_ as the darkest moment of my entire life, and believe me there was a long list.”

He looked down at the flowers he was holding, because he wasn’t sure he could face seeing Quentin’s reaction.

“Eliot?” said Quentin.

Eliot looked up, bracing himself. Quentin’s expression wasn’t clear, though he looked soft. Fond, perhaps.

“I missed you so much,” he said. “I thought about you, about us, all the time, I don’t just mean, since the Underworld, I mean – all the time you were gone. So much happened. And this - ” he waved a hand at Eliot, and the vague space from which he’d appeared, “it’s complicated.” He squared his shoulders, “I lost you over and over again, and I don’t really believe you’re here, to be honest, I probably won’t for – days, months, whatever. But I would’ve done anything to get you back.”

“You did,” said Eliot. “You did get me back.”

“Well,” said Quentin. He ducked his head. “You got even.” He met Eliot’s eyes, running his hand through his hair. “I’m – I totally suck at romantic declarations, I’m sorry.”

“Historically, you’re much better at them than I am,” said Eliot. He felt lighter, all over. “This is a first, for me.”

“The thing is, El,” said Quentin, in a way that would have seemed sterner if he wasn’t looking rumpled and just-kissed and sweetly earnest. “ _You’re_ not single, are you?”

“I’m single _in this world_ ,” said Eliot. “I think I’m single in this _body_. I think it’s sort of been – wiped clean on re-entry.”

“What?” said Quentin. His brow was furrowed.

“Uh,” said Eliot. He swallowed a brief stab of panic. He and Quentin definitely needed to talk about Hades, but perhaps this wasn’t entirely the right moment.

“Let’s go…somewhere,” he said, crowding himself as close as he could, while holding a large bunch of roses. “Anywhere.” He bent to kiss Quentin again, as suggestively as he could.

“You can’t just,” said Quentin, weakly, breaking off. “We’re in _public_. I haven’t even _seen_ you in months. And Margo’s waiting for us. And, umm. Probably everyone else, too, back at the apartment.”

“Mmm,” said Eliot. Margo would 100% understand if he managed to drag Quentin to a hotel room and took all his clothes off, very slowly. Alice, however, was a little more complicated.

“Alright,” he said. “Margo, then back to the penthouse, if that’s still home base. And then, maybe? Later?”

Quentin ducked his head. “Maybe,” he said.

Margo rolled her eyes at them so hard she nearly fell off the barstool, when they found her, but she also winked at Eliot when Quentin wasn’t looking, so.

The walk back to the apartment, through the wintry streets, was incredibly distracting. Eliot had spent a lot of time trying to recreate exactly this, only better: the sounds that meant ‘city’, the sense of motion and dynamism, all around. And the cold air, darkness falling around them, was fabulous, even if his suit wasn’t entirely appropriate for the depths of winter. He hadn’t spent much time on altering the seasons, in Elysium, he would have to get on that. He was itching to stop and take notes. Margo had linked her arm through his, and was talking to him. Quentin was on his other side, almost close enough to touch.

“Your bank card, your ID, all that shit, it’s still at the apartment,” she said. “And your clothes. They’re in my room. You need to check your account, make sure Hades came through on the paycheck. You do recall my excellent subclause about your salary as a kept man, right?”

“How’s Josh?” said Eliot, remembering with a start that he hadn’t even asked. “And Fen? I assume Alice would’ve said if anyone was dead, but I don’t have a fucking clue what’s been happening to any of you.”

“They’re good,” said Margo. “The whole time-travel thing, it worked, we skipped over our terrible fates or whatever. Things have been fucking crazy on other fronts, though, you won’t believe what’s been going on. Josh and Fen send their regrets, they’re up to their eyes in toad guts and we’ve got to get the slime out of the rivers before it hits the drinking water, that kind of shit. I’ve got about three days and then either you’re coming with me or you’ll be without me for another few weeks, minimum.”

“I love you, Bambi, but I might need a month or so on Earth, before I tackle Fillory,” said Eliot.

“No shit,” said Margo, looking up at him and then cutting her eyes towards Quentin, who was oblivious.

The penthouse had no good memories for Eliot. He’d been in a haze of pain and grief every minute he’d spent in it. It had also been dreadfully clear that the others remembered Eliot’s body, in that space: Julia’s sharp intake of breath when he’d come up behind her; Penny 23 falling back a step, defensive, when he’d seen Eliot lying on the sofa in the half-dark. He’d spent a lot of time, in those dark weeks, thinking about what memories of Eliot’s body Quentin had taken with him, to the mirror world.

He steeled himself, as they entered, but the main room was warm and full of light and people, and Margo and Quentin were flanking him, Quentin’s hand brushing his. Julia came over and hugged him, and then hugged Quentin, hard, wiping her eyes. Kady clapped him on the shoulder. Penny 23, surprisingly, hugged him harder than anyone. Margo took Quentin’s flowers from Eliot’s grasp and went straight to the counter, where someone, Eliot noted, had set out glasses and an ice-bucket. She stuck the roses into it. There were fairy-lights everywhere, so someone had made an effort for the holidays. Festive, Eliot thought.

Alice was hovering, looking slightly awkward and manifestly unsure whether she and Eliot were on hugging terms.

Eliot nodded at her. “Head Librarian Quinn,” he said.

Alice raised her eyebrows. “Consort Waugh.”

“Would’ve been nice if you’d responded to my proposals before my leaving date, as requested,” Eliot said.

“They’re in the system,” said Alice, primly. “Undergoing review.”

“Oh, I know,” said Eliot. “Your staff keep me posted. I expect you’re looking forward to six months without my memos: don’t worry, I left strict instructions for follow-up.”

“I’d expect no less,” said Alice. Her mouth twitched. “We should schedule an in-person meeting.”

Eliot smiled his ‘married to the god of Hell’ smile, which had a lot of teeth. It had become very effective. Even Alice blinked.

“Any time,” he said.

“Alice? El?” said Quentin. “What’s going on?”

“Work stuff,” said Eliot. “Alice didn’t tell you?”

“It’s _confidential_ ,” said Alice. “You know I couldn’t – ”

Eliot was feeling magnanimous: it was even good to see Alice, despite her incredibly terse passive-aggressive memos full of bureaucratic bullshit and not one single word, in the last three torturous months, about whether Quentin was OK. Also, he needed her, for the future. He stepped forward and kissed her on the cheek, before she could object.

Alice flushed. “It’s – good to see you,” she said. Then she looked Eliot directly in the eyes. “Quentin missed you.”

Eliot grinned at her. “I missed him too,” he said, over the protesting noise that Quentin made, beside him.

The evening descended into a small-scale party. Someone ordered pizza. A friend of Penny’s called Frankie showed up with five other friends and two crates of beer. Someone called Pete who was either a friend, a minion or a lover of Kady’s, possibly all three, showed up too, and brought a coven of baby Goth hedge witches with him, who contributed several bottles of mystery spirits and then went off to lurk in a corner, smoking with all the boredom of extreme youth. Someone turned the music up, and Julia rolled a rug back and got an impromptu dancefloor going.

Eliot and Hades had hosted a party for three hundred guests at the newly opened opera house, a couple of weeks ago. Champagne and canapés, formal gowns in styles from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, one hundred dead luminaries, two hundred of the regular dead who had stated their love for classical music on Eliot’s questionnaire. Eliot had planned to look decorative, make sure that everyone’s glass was filled, and admire the work of his devoted volunteer teams of florists and caterers. In hindsight, this had wildly underestimated the ability of musicians to nurse grudges for centuries after their death. Champagne had been thrown. Someone tipped an entire tray of canapés over someone else, apparently due to a fight about Sydney Opera House acoustics.

He had also underestimated the dead luminaries and their fans. This was the queerest party he’d ever attended, let alone the queerest party he’d ever thrown, and that was certainly saying something. He managed to get himself trapped in the middle of a passionate disagreement between Britten, Poulenc and some star-struck fans over, of all things, the merits of different dog breeds. Or that was what it about on the surface. It wasn’t clear whether the two of them might be going to fuck each other, attempt to fuck Eliot – that would be a mistake – or whether the whole group were about to embark on a mass orgy in the middle of the foyer.

He’d become so out of his depth that he’d had to look to Hades for rescue.  Hades had caught Eliot’s glance and come over from across the room, to slide a possessive arm round his waist and instantly cause the volume to drop, the argument to slide away into murmurings about the pleasure of the evening, and the flirtation to tone itself down, slightly. Glances slid over Eliot, snagged on him, flicked away, wistful. With Hades at his side, Eliot made a point of smiling blindingly and very suggestively at anyone whose stares he caught. He hoped Hades was noticing, which might have its possibilities.

Hades had definitely noticed. Hades in his tux, pressing Eliot into the plush walls of their private box, door unlocked, winding him up just enough that he’d had to sit through the entire performance, Hades’ warm hand on his knee in view of the crowd, flushed and turned-on and anticipating, barely hearing a word of the music.

“What are you thinking about?” said Margo, suspiciously. They were behind the counter, theoretically trying to turn the mystery spirits into something drinkable.

“We threw a party in the Underworld a couple of weeks ago,” said Eliot. “I was thinking about – how different it was.”

“‘We’,” said Margo.

“I did the planning, obviously. It was an opera opening, turns out those are a lot wilder than I’d imagined. Tchaikovsky propositioned me in the bathroom and I nearly said yes – did you know he was hot?”

“El,” said Margo. “If you need to share, I’m here for you, but so as we’re clear, you’re really fucking freaking me out.”

Eliot put an arm around her. “I was going to go on to say how much better this is,” he said. “My life there – it freaks me out too, Bambi. It’s – real and it’s not. It’s _me_ and it’s not. Because no-one there knows me, even if – even if they’ve read every word of my fucking book.”

He looked towards Quentin, who was across the room in a quiet corner, curled into the sofa, talking to one of Frankie’s friends about something and pulling on the ends of his sleeves. Every now and then he would glance over to check that Eliot was still there.

“Be careful,” said Margo, following his gaze. “I don’t want either of you broken. And things have been pretty fucking dicey with Q, now and then. I think he’s getting better, but he’s not always OK, you know?”

“I _don’t_ know,” said Eliot. “And I need to. Did he tell you I thought he was going to choose to stay there, in the Underworld? I was so fucking scared.”

“He did,” said Margo, leaning into him. “And he chose to come back to us. Let’s stop with these fucking awful drinks, go hide in a bedroom for an hour with the good wine and we can catch each other up.”

Eliot nodded. He looked over at Quentin again, but Q had been here without him for three months, he’d be fine.

**

Quentin looked round for Eliot, and couldn’t see him. Margo was gone too, though, so that made sense. Eliot would have told him if he was leaving the building.

Bilal was still on a roll about why Quentin should join his new Pandemic: Legacy group. Which maybe Quentin should, though he wasn’t sure that strategizing saving the world from disaster would count as a relaxing hobby. He liked Bilal, who was unashamedly serious and geeky and had latched immediately onto Quentin as someone up for hours of detailed conversation about board games and sci-fi. He liked all Frankie’s friends, in fact. He’d seen them at Frankie’s Christmas party, only a few weeks ago, but he’d been stuck in a spiral of counting the days and obsessing over Eliot’s return then, so he suspected he’d been terrible company.

This was a good evening. Julia was dancing with Penny, laughing. She’d beckoned to Quentin, but he’d shaken his head, more secure in watching. Kady was dancing with Pete, who looked terrified. He was a very good dancer, though.

Time passed. Bilal wandered off to chat to Frankie. Julia flopped on the sofa beside Quentin and they watched everyone for a while.

“You and Eliot?” she said. “Are you two going to?” She made a crude gesture, and Quentin shoved her shoulder.

“I guess – I hope so” he admitted. “Though – I still don’t know how to handle this, Jules. I’m out of my depth, you know? This whole situation is so - ” He groped for the right word, and failed to find it. “And Eliot – I mean.”

He waved his hands, trying to convey the difference between the extremely well-tailored suit Eliot had shown up wearing, tight in all the right places, and Quentin’s fairly hopeless attempt at curated smart dressing. The thought that Hades might have _dressed_ Eliot in that suit had already crossed Quentin’s mind. And then there was the general difference between Eliot’s spectacular attractiveness – and Quentin’s – Quentin’s everything.

Julia was giving him a very familiar exasperated look.

“Q,” she said. “We’ve been over this already. Eliot grieved for you as the love of his life, we were all fucking _there_ , he wasn’t even trying to hide it. And if you think that he’s changed his mind now, or that he’s not still totally into you, then you’re not seeing what I’m seeing – and what I’m seeing includes the photo Margo texted me of you two making out like teenagers on Grand Central Station concourse.”

“Seriously?” said Quentin. “Can I see it?”

“Nope,” said Julia, “It’s private. Unless Margo tweeted it to the Brakebills alumni list, I think she was considering it.”

Quentin rolled his eyes at her. “Do you think Eliot seems – OK?” he said.

Julia’s expression turned thoughtful. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Eliot’s good at front, you know that. He looks OK, though, you know? He looks like himself again. Compared to when – ”

“Yeah,” said Quentin. “That’s what I think.”

He looked round at a sound, and saw Eliot and Margo coming back down the hall, holding hands. They paused at the counter and Margo reached up and kissed him, and then Eliot met Quentin’s eyes.

“I’m going to go get a drink,” said Julia, nudging Quentin in his side, and she stood up. Eliot came over and sat down where she’d been. He looked a bit red-eyed, and his eyeliner was smudged. Quentin shifted over, so that his legs were leaning on Eliot. He kind of wanted to crawl into Eliot’s lap and hold onto him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said Eliot. He listed sideways towards Quentin. “This is maybe a conversation we shouldn’t have in the middle of this, but Margo says things were rough for you, after you came back?”

“Oh,” said Quentin. “Yeah. It wasn’t – ” he took a breath. “It wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before, El. And I’m getting better, I think. Everything’s been more – steady, the last month or so.”

Eliot nodded. His mouth was set. “When I found you,” he said, “you were happy, in the Underworld, right? You didn’t have to deal with all this – ”

“I wanted to come back,” said Quentin, quickly. Eliot looked so sad, all of a sudden. “El. You mustn’t ever think, ever – you’ve given me another chance. With– ” he waved a hand, at their friends, at the music, “with all of this. And, and I’d rather feel bad than not really feel anything, even if I did still feel that bad - hey, look at me - ”

Eliot still looked unsure. Quentin gave up on worrying about everyone else in the room and did climb into his lap, straddling him, putting his arms around Eliot’s neck.

Eliot looked surprised, and pleased. His arms came up to hold Quentin.

“Kiss me?” said Quentin, meaning to sound demanding, but not really succeeding. He bent down to Eliot’s mouth, and shut his eyes, concentrating on how good it felt, trying to tell Eliot this without words.

“You make me feel so much,” he said to Eliot, breaking off, leaning against him. “I never would have felt like this again, in the Underworld, would I?”

Eliot’s eyes were brighter. “Not as such,” he said. “I put some thought into letting people feel, well, a little more like themselves, if they wanted to. But, umm, if you feel – even half as, mmm, desperate as I feel when you kiss me, then that would certainly be disruptive to the smooth running of Elysium.”

“Oh,” said Quentin, parsing that. He shivered. “Can we, umm, should we go to my room? I mean, it’s your party, so only if – ”

“Q,” said Eliot. “Please, please take me to your room before I do inappropriate things to you in front of all our friends and some random minors.”

Quentin shifted off him, clumsily, and Eliot stood up, pulling Quentin with him and keeping hold of his hand. He didn’t bother to say goodbye to anyone, he just tugged Quentin after him, and Quentin kept his head lowered, and followed.

Eliot let them in to Quentin’s room, and Quentin closed the door behind them. Then he hesitated. Eliot let go of him and went to sit on the bed, pulling himself up to sit against the headboard

“Q?” he said, as Quentin dithered.

Quentin sat down by Eliot’s legs, which Eliot shifted over to make room, on the edge of the bed. Eliot was studying him, his eyes soft. He thought about Eliot and Hades. He hadn’t really stopped thinking about Eliot and Hades, on and off, for the last months. He took a breath. He was supposed to be trying to – set boundaries. Tell people what he wanted.

“I, uh,” he said. “It’s been a really long time since I did this. Alice and I never. And I don’t know about, about Brian, but I don’t remember much about that.” He swallowed, twisting his hands. “And then.”

He looked round at Eliot. Eliot was sitting very still and he had the tense expression he got when he was braced for something. Quentin remembered, all of a sudden, that Eliot had been here when he wasn’t, that he’d maybe heard about what the monster had been like, and not from Quentin.

“I didn’t mean – “ he said. “Eliot. I didn’t mean that it, that the Monster did anything. It was just that I was so tired, and things were so awful.” He stopped, and sighed. “I haven’t had sex in, like, _years_ ,” he said. “I haven’t _wanted_ to. And you’ve been – El, you’ve been fucking a _god_. I’m not - ”

“Quentin,” said Eliot. “When I said you make me feel desperate, I meant it. I’m happy to tell you how – how fucking crazy it’s driving me to touch you again, as many times as you want to hear it. But if you think that I’m going to talk you into something you aren’t sure about, or – ”

“No, I – ”

“Because we can just – talk. Or go to sleep. Or do whatever you want, seriously.”

“I _want_ to – ” said Quentin, breaking off, with a noise of frustration. Why was this so hard? They’d only just been kissing, it had been great, and now he’d managed to turn everything awkward and make Eliot worried about him, and –

“OK,” said Eliot. “OK. I have an idea. Margo may have, umm, also mentioned that you were maybe feeling a little paranoid about – about Hades.”

Quentin didn’t bother to come up with a sarcastic response. He shrugged. There was no point denying it.

“Which I totally get,” said Eliot. “I’m not going to lie to you, Q. I am fucking him. I can’t – if we’re doing this, if we’re going to do this – I can’t pretend I’m not. It’s not…something I’m putting up with, because of the contract. I do, umm, enjoy myself.” He shrugged. “You already knew I was kind of shallow and easy, and he’s not unattractive. As Margo told you, I believe.”

Quentin opened his mouth to interrupt, but Eliot carried on.

“At the station, what I said, though – it’s like none of it happened to this body, in this world. It’s already kind of, distant, I don’t know, I can’t explain it.”

“I’m not sure that makes me feel better,” said Quentin.

“The thing is, I wondered.” Eliot lowered his voice, and looked at Quentin in a way that was frankly unfair. “Whether you might like to hear about it, about me and Hades. I’ll tell you anything you want to know. I remember, I think I remember, that when we were in Fillory, you sometimes – you liked it, when I told you about….”

“Uh,” said Quentin. His mouth had gone dry. He did remember that. He remembered that even back in those long-ago Brakebills days, when Eliot had lain around in his shirtsleeves and vests in the cottage, waving a cigarette and dissecting every detail of whatever he’d been up to the previous night for Margo’s benefit, Quentin had sat in the corner with a book and tried very hard to pretend he wasn’t listening. He remembered losing part of a lecture because he’d been staring at a random second-year – Quentin didn’t know his name, and he wasn’t sure Eliot did either – and thinking about everything that Eliot had said about his skills in giving head. He remembered picturing it, and going hot all over, and dropping his pen under the table. He’d thought about Eliot and Mike, Eliot and Idri, Eliot and….everyone, mostly.

He remembered cold, rainy nights in Fillory, in bed early with nothing to do, when Eliot had told Quentin stories about everything he’d once got up to, and who he’d done it with. He remembered that his body had got used to responding to a certain tone of voice, to the lazy and matter-of-fact way Eliot recounted what he’d done, or what people had done to him, and whether he’d liked it or not. He remembered what had usually happened after, or during, those stories. It had never been something he’d even thought of enjoying, or wanting, before Eliot.

“How about I start talking,” said Eliot. “And if you don’t like it, I’ll stop.” He surveyed Quentin, who wasn’t sure what his face was showing, and inclined his head.

“Where to start. Hmm. Well, he’s very good at using magic. There’s this one spell that can – hold you in place, without any bindings, it’s – sometimes he leaves me there, on the bed, waiting – “

He paused expectantly. Quentin cleared his throat.

“You, um, you like that?” he said, and then felt himself blush. Maybe he shouldn’t try to say anything.

“Yes,” said Eliot, simply. “Not as much as I’d like to use that spell on you, though. If you wanted me to.”

Quentin breathed in sharply.

“I’ve gotten in a lot of practice at taking someone apart when he really wants you to work for it,” said Eliot, “as well as a lot of practice at _being_ taken apart. Do you want to hear more?”

Quentin licked his lips. He was definitely turned on, imagining Eliot naked, spread out on a bed somewhere – it had red silk sheets, in his mind – how beautiful he would look, how impatient.

He nodded, very slightly.

“He likes it when I’m a little bit desperate,” said Eliot. “You know that other spell, the one everyone wishes they could do, to touch someone at a distance? Really fucking high-level magic for us to get right, and I should know, I tried it about a thousand times back in the day, and I’ve got my TK as an advantage. Hades can work that from across the room. If I’m – you’re picturing me naked, right, good – if I’m spread out for him, hard – he can sit across the room and flick a finger and I feel it all over, God, it’s good.”

He made a motion with his fingers and the top two buttons of Quentin’s shirt undid themselves. There was a fleeting sensation on his neck, like a very light brush of fingers.

“OK?” said Eliot. “I’ve been practicing, but I wasn’t sure it would carry over to earth.”

“It’s OK,” said Quentin. He ran his hands over his own thighs, and leaned back a little, against Eliot’s legs.

“I _wish_ I could work that spell fully, Q. It feels – it can drive you wild, being touched and not-touched, so that when he does come over and touch me, I’m ready to beg him for anything, anything at all.”

He made the same gesture, and the next two buttons of Quentin’s shirt came undone. The ghostly sensation ran across his chest again, and he shuddered.

Eliot’s eyes were half-lidded. Quentin looked at him, and Eliot deliberately ran a hand down his own chest. All the buttons on his smart shirt opened as he did. Quentin could see his chest, his stomach – he moved closer, remembering, and saw that there was a scar there, faint and silvery, as though it had been healed for years.

“Can I?” he said.

“You can touch any part of me you want, sweetheart,” said Eliot.

Quentin reached out and ran his fingers over the scar, feeling Eliot’s stomach tense as he did so. He shifted so that he could run his hands over Eliot’s chest: soft skin, and crisp hair; he thumbed one of Eliot’s nipples, lightly and Eliot hissed.

“Do you want me to keep talking?” Eliot said. There was a very slight shake in his voice. His hands were still, at his sides, while Quentin touched him, though his chest was rising and falling more rapidly.

Quentin put a hand over Eliot’s heart, feeling it beat. He tapped at Eliot’s nipple with a finger, almost experimentally, and Eliot dropped his head back against the headboard. Quentin bent down and kissed his chest, then sucked a nipple into his mouth, flicking his tongue over it, feeling Eliot’s breath coming more quickly.

He sat up, sliding a hand down and hooking his fingers into Eliot’s waistband. Eliot’s eyes were wide, his mouth open; he was looking at Quentin as though he was really as desperate as he had said.

Quentin threw caution to the winds. That had been about five minutes of taking it slow, he was done with it.

“I want your cock in my mouth,” he said. His therapist would have been proud of him, he thought.

He felt Eliot’s muscles twitch, where he was touching him. “Gods,” Eliot said. “I should say no to this, shouldn’t I, because we’re – “ Quentin moved his fingers and Eliot actually gasped, “we’re – we’re supposed to be talking things through, oh fuck it, self-restraint has never been my thing. Yes, Q, of course, please, yes – ”

Quentin swallowed as desire ran through him, all his nerves sparking at once. He wanted Eliot so much he couldn’t breathe. He bent his head and kissed Eliot’s chest again, clumsily, licking his way down. He shouldn’t, theoretically, know the smell of Eliot’s skin, but he did. He kissed and licked at Eliot’s scar, blood rushing in his ears, trying to unfasten Eliot’s suit trousers, one-handed, they had some sort of fucking complicated –

Eliot slid down the bed and Quentin followed: Eliot’s hands were there, helping, and Quentin stopped to suck two of Eliot’s long fingers into his mouth, licking between them.

“Fuck,” said Eliot, cut off, “That’s so – I want you so much – “

Quentin groaned, and pulled off; he needed Eliot’s cock in his mouth immediately, that moment. Eliot’s trousers were open just enough that he could tug them apart and breathe on him, mouthing at him, and then by some kind of magic or mystery Eliot’s shorts had come open and finally Quentin could kiss and lick at skin.

He’d missed this, he really had, he would have felt almost humiliated by how much it seemed he’d missed it, except that Eliot was gasping his name and trying to push up towards Quentin’s mouth.

Quentin thought he might know, somewhere in the back of his mind, how to do this slowly and with a lot of tricks that he’d learned from - from Eliot, in some other world and time; from Eliot showing him exactly what he liked. Right now, though, he mistrusted whether this sudden surge of lust might burn out, so he didn’t even think of teasing further; he simply took Eliot in his mouth and slid down as far as he could, sucking him in earnest.

Eliot shouted, stifled, and his hips moved. Quentin pulled off, went down again, trying to let Eliot set the pace; after a moment one of Eliot’s hands gripped his head, firmly but gently, and that was much better, letting Eliot help to move him, so that he didn’t have to think at all. The sounds Eliot was making, cut-off noises as though he couldn’t help himself, they were going straight to Quentin’s cock; he was hard, thank God. He lost track of time a little, caught up in it, but it didn’t seem long before Eliot was saying his name in a breathless voice, tugging at his hair.

Quentin didn’t care, he wanted all of Eliot he could get, and so he carried on, taking Eliot as deep as he could and letting him come in his mouth, swallowing around him as best he could. Eliot’s thighs were trembling. Quentin pulled off and mouthed at them, and Eliot made a sound like a laugh.

“Q, my God,” he said. “If this is what happens when I tell you stories about my other lover then I’ll be, what’s her name, fucking Scheherezade by tomorrow.”

Quentin crawled up him and Eliot kissed him, deep and wet, licking into Quentin’s mouth.

“I’ve still got my shoes on, for fuck’s sake,” he said, breaking off. “You’ve got four buttons undone.” He slid a purposeful hand down between them, pressing between Quentin’s legs, and Quentin moaned and pushed into it. Eliot moved his fingers. Quentin was uncomfortable, but he was also so close, so turned on just from this, that stopping to take any clothes off or even undo his jeans seemed as though it would be the end of the world.

“Don’t stop,” he said, “I’m – ” and he hid his face in Eliot’s neck as he pushed into Eliot’s hand. He felt pleasure building inside him and cresting, panting into Eliot’s mouth as Eliot’s fingers pressed in all the right places.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, when he could speak again. Eliot was stroking his hair, holding him, it felt amazing.

“Sorry?” said Eliot. “For what?”

“You know,” said Quentin. “That was – I came really quickly, sorry, it’s been a while, I was – ”

“I have a feeling I’ve said this many times before, but you never need to apologize for being turned on, baby.” He huffed out a laugh. “I wasn’t exactly smooth myself, there, I think the whole apartment heard me.”

Quentin relaxed, a bit. He was comfortable and also uncomfortable; his clothes were wrecked, and his jeans felt gross.

“We could take off our clothes?” he said.

“That would involve moving,” said Eliot. “I’m enjoying the afterglow.” He did something that was a more graceful version of a wiggle, like a cat, pressing in still closer to Quentin.

“If we took off all our clothes, we’d be naked,” said Quentin. “I haven’t seen you naked, since – “ He stopped, feeling shy again.

Eliot sighed. “Mmm, you have a point,” he said. “Unfortunately magicking all this away is a little beyond my skills, especially when you destroyed my higher cognitive functions. I’m going to undress you as fast as possible the ordinary way, OK?”

“You don’t have to ask,” said Quentin.

“Q, I’m always going to ask,” said Eliot. “You don’t get a choice about that. Let’s say I just love to hear you say yes.”

Quentin smiled at him. “Then, yes,” he said.

**

Quentin blinked awake early the next morning, still dark outside, to find himself wrapped up in Eliot. He lay for a moment, luxuriating, and then extricated himself – Eliot stirred, without waking up – and went to the bathroom. He brushed his teeth, and looked at himself in the mirror. He looked – brighter. He smiled at himself and then winced: he actually was standing there congratulating himself on having got Eliot back into bed, at last. And he felt like Eliot undressing him, slowly and thoroughly, Eliot seeing and touching and kissing every part of him, had made his body make sense, had made him, Quentin, make sense, in ways that he hadn’t, since he’d returned. He thought about Hades again, and then pushed the thought away, resolutely.

He went back to the bedroom, hesitated for only a moment over whether to put any clothes on, and then slid back into bed naked.

“Mmmf,” said Eliot. He stretched, running a proprietary hand over Quentin, and opened his eyes, blinking. “You’re awake. You smell of toothpaste, gods that’s so human, I love it. Is it morning?”

“Sort of,” said Quentin. “You don’t need to be awake.”

“I’m not intending to get out of bed,” said Eliot. His hand moved down to Quentin’s ass, resting there. “I haven’t woken up with you – I haven’t woken up with anyone, in a long time. If you want to, I feel very motivated by the idea of lazy morning sex.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin, curling a hand on Eliot’s side, in the dip just above his hips that was one of his favourite parts. “So – you and Hades, he doesn’t – do gods sleep?”

“Not that I’ve seen,” said Eliot. “We don’t live together, you know. We don’t share a closet, or read the Sunday papers in bed, or trade kisses over brunch or whatever. He comes and goes. I mean, he’s around after, it’s not like he fucks me and fucks off, he’s just not the cuddling type.”

“Oh,” said Quentin. He thought about Eliot, lying in some fancy bed, alone, and felt a mixture of sadness, for Eliot, and satisfaction, that he, Quentin, got to lie here with Eliot and touch him like this, with Eliot unwound and heavy with sleep.

“Whatever you’re imagining,” said Eliot, yawning, “with Hades, think of it more like – one of those porn films with a hot boss and his secretary, except with more genuine work involved. This – you. It’s totally different. There’s no comparison.”

“No comparison, in what way?” said Quentin, trying and failing not to feel another tendril of paranoia. He was certainly never going to star in a porn film.

“Because,” said Eliot. He ran his hand up Quentin’s back, and yawned again. “I don’t want to push you, with the grand declarations every single day I’m back But you should know that I do want to share a closet with you, no puns of any sort intended, though I may have to burn your entire wardrobe first and start from scratch. I fantasize about kissing you while you’re, I don’t know, making pancakes in pyjamas and an apron and singing along to the radio.” His mouth turned up, but his eyes were serious. “I want that, Q. I want us – together. Like we were.”

“Yeah,” said Quentin. “That sounds – good. I wasn’t sure – what you’d want.”

“I’m also very resolved to be better at asking. In general,” said Eliot. He traced the corners of Quentin’s mouth, and Quentin smiled properly.

“And also,” Eliot, said.  “Q, sweetheart. The way you go down on me, like there’s nothing else in the world you’d rather do, like you’re so hot for it you can’t wait any longer; no-one, human or divine, has ever acted like that in my bed.”

Quentin felt himself turning red.

“I’m going to brush my teeth,” said Eliot, “and then, to get some of my own back for last night, what I’d like to do is kiss you all over and then lick you here,” – his fingers stroked between the cheeks of Quentin’s ass, gently, and Quentin shifted, all of his body turning on at once, like a switch had been flicked, “until you’re begging me to come, and then I think I want to use my mouth on you. Maybe fingering you too, if you want.”

“God,” said Quentin. Eliot raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, God, yes. You don’t want to…?”

“I want to be inside you so badly,” said Eliot. “Believe me. But after what we were saying last night, I also want to take things slow. Or slower, at least, since it doesn’t seem that we’re in the slow lane right now, so to speak.”

“Mmm,” said Quentin. He felt pretty motivated to get Eliot to change his mind, on that.

Several hours later, Quentin woke up again, from what he’d thought was a brief moment of recovery, because he was thirsty and starving. He hadn’t changed Eliot’s mind. He’d effectively begged, mindlessly and far too loudly for a shared apartment, for Eliot’s cock. But Eliot had smiled at him evilly and shaken his head and let Quentin fuck himself on Eliot’s fingers instead, relearning what it felt like, gasping and shivering and crying out; and then Eliot had, true to his word, sucked Quentin’s cock until Quentin had thought he was going to cry with pleasure. He was fairly sure that at points in the past Eliot had set out with a plan to make Quentin cry real tears in bed, and that he’d usually succeeded.

And after that, Eliot had turned him round, pressed himself against Quentin’s back and thrust between his thighs, shaking and murmuring endearments, until he’d come again, shuddering, holding Quentin close.

Quentin lay and replayed all of this for a minute or two, and then opened his eyes and looked round. Eliot was sitting up beside him, awake, peering at Quentin’s phone.

“Hi,” said Quentin, croakily. “What are you doing?”

Eliot looked him over, and smirked. He reached for the nightstand and passed Quentin a glass of water: Quentin propped himself up on one elbow to drink it.

“You’re supposed to _change_ your password every few years, you know,” said Eliot. “Ugh, I can’t believe how much shit I’ve missed, this is going to take the whole six months to catch up on.”

“Get your own phone,” said Quentin, half-heartedly, unable to summon up any indignation.

“Oh, I certainly will,” said Eliot. “My old one’s around here somewhere, with my laptop. They’ll be totally fucking obsolete though, I need new everything electronic. I’ll have to swing by an Apple store, that’s on my list anyway.”

“List?” said Quentin.

“I made a list of priorities, it didn’t come through with me, though, I’ll have to recreate it,” said Eliot absently.  “I need to go to the Met. That’s urgent, there’s a ton of stuff I got wrong. And the Cloisters. MOMA. Every museum and art gallery, pretty much. I need to see the past and current theatre and music listings and do some research asap too, I’ve got to plan my next few seasons. And is there a Farrow & Ball showroom near here?”

“A what?” said Quentin.

“Paint,” said Eliot. “I’m doing some more renovation work, I need to talk to a consultant – ”

“Slow down,” said Quentin. “Is this _work_ stuff? Underworld stuff?”

“Umm,” said Eliot. “Yes? I – this is kind of my job. No, not kind of. This is my job. I’m – not bad at it. It’s a lot of work, though. Things had gotten very, umm, run down and neglected. I mean, I’m sure Our Lady Underground had better things to do, I’m not saying it was her _fault_ as such, but there’s definitely plenty of room for improvements.”

“Mmm,” said Quentin. He thought about it for a moment. “Am I allowed to help?”

Eliot stopped tapping at the phone and looked down at him.

“Of course,” he said. “I didn’t know if you’d want to.”

“I know you’re not allowed to tell me all that much,” said Quentin. “I read the, the confidentiality clause or whatever. I’d like, though – I mean if you didn’t mind – Alice knows what you’re doing, right? I want to hear about it, if I can.”

“Then absolutely,” said Eliot. “If it doesn’t interfere with your own plans.  No-one including you has told me what you _have_ been doing, so I don’t even know if you’re working, or if you’re going back to school, or…”

“I’m not doing anything,” Quentin interrupted. “I mean, I have literally no plans. I haven’t thought about it properly.” He sighed. “I know I have to. There’s been a lot going on with everyone, though, I’ve been helping them. Kind of.”

“You’ve been _recovering_ ,” said Eliot. “And you still are. I could certainly use your help, but only if you promise to rest and eat your greens and so on.”

“I’ve had plenty of rest,” said Quentin. He nudged Eliot’s leg with his foot.

Eliot set the phone down on the nightstand, and took the glass from Quentin’s hand and set that down, too. “We can stay in bed for at least another few hours before Margo loses patience,” he said. “We could also have a shower and then go _back_ to bed. Or a bath, even. I could wash your back.”

Quentin collapsed back onto the bed and thought about it for a moment. It was distracting to feel this physically good, this warm and loose-limbed.

“Shower and food?” he said.

“Shower sex and food?” said Eliot. “I may be a whole six months older than I was yesterday, but I’m sure I can get it up again if I’m feeling motivated.”

Quentin groaned faintly, but not unenthusiastically, and Eliot bent down to kiss him, again.

**

Eliot hadn’t been lying about the list. He dragged Quentin round art galleries and museums, and when Quentin had to take some time off to lie down quietly and recover, both from the museums, and from all the sex he was now having, Eliot took Margo instead, or Penny 23, who had turned out to be more into art galleries than anyone had guessed. Eliot and Quentin, and anyone else who was in the apartment, went to a ton of shows on and off Broadway. They walked round parts of the city Quentin hadn’t been to in years, or that he’d thought he’d known before he went there with Eliot, taking notes and studying the buildings and watching the people, shivering on street corners. Eliot liked the snow and the cold – Elysium was generally set to summer, Quentin thought – and Quentin liked watching Eliot, snowflakes in his curls, his cheeks red with cold.

Eliot bought books and made notes and then genuinely spent evenings poring over them and making people quiz him about the details. He also spent a lot of time checking out obituaries online, though he stopped doing it where Quentin could see when Quentin told him it was morbid. And he made Quentin spend _two hours_ in a paint store while Eliot and the assistant, no, _consultant_ , had an extremely intense and passionate discussion about ten very slightly different shades of grey.

“What did you even tell her?” said Quentin, when they left with some very tiny paint samples and no actual paint, the consultant patting Eliot’s shoulder and refusing to charge them.

“I told her I work for the military and I was redecorating an overseas base to encourage wellbeing in our troops through colour therapy. Of course.”

“That’s your cover story?” said Quentin. “I seriously don’t think they have Farrow & Ball paint in Afghanistan or wherever.”

“But if they did, it would totally help with morale,” said Eliot. “Just as it will in the Underworld waiting room – did you _see_ that colour – oh, sorry Q – ”

“It’s OK,” said Quentin. “I didn’t come through there, I don’t think, except for that time when I was gatecrashing with Julia.”

“That’s right, you saw Our Lady Underground’s house and the shades, didn’t you. Christ, it was like something out of Melania Trump’s bedside magazines when I got there; I had to start from scratch.”

“The shades…” said Quentin.

“They’re, umm, just kids,” said Eliot. “I’ve been. I’ve been looking out for them, when I can.”

“Oh,” said Quentin. He took Eliot’s hand. “That’s, that’s good.” Eliot was really good with children, he remembered that.

“I’m not sure I should say much more,” said Eliot. “Even if I understood the whole deal with people and their shades and the Underworld, which I don’t even fucking try to.”

“Keep the mortals in ignorance,” said Quentin. He meant it as a joke, though it didn’t come out that way.

Eliot stopped and turned to him.

“I’m not immortal.” He pulled up their joined hands, and kissed Quentin’s fingers. “I’m human. I’ll grow old. I’ll get sick. I’ll die, eventually. It’s just like I did work overseas, six months of the year. All I meant was, I pretty much let the – philosophy and theology of the whole set-up sail straight over my head. That’s what the Underworld librarians are for, they can try to make sense of the madness. I just – re-organize it.”

“I do know you’re human,” said Quentin. “Here, anyway.” He leaned up and kissed Eliot, there in the street. “Top-secret military, huh? So I could be, like an, army sweetheart?”

“Absolutely,” said Eliot. “I’ll keep a pin-up of you in my bunk.”

Quentin laughed. Eliot squeezed his hand, and they kept walking. 

Eliot had been back eight weeks by then: winter was slowly edging towards spring. He’d introduced Quentin, in the paint shop, as his boyfriend, and Quentin had liked it; no, he’d loved it. They hadn’t spent a night apart, yet. But when those nights grew longest, in July, Quentin would lose him again. Eliot wouldn’t see late summer, he wouldn’t be there for the leaves turning, he wouldn’t see the start of winter, the Christmas lights going up, the ice-rinks opening. These things were all on Quentin’s list, the one naming everything that Eliot had given up, that he still thought about if he woke in the early hours of the morning, even if Eliot was sleeping beside him.

**

“What happens when you go back?” Margo said to Eliot, quietly, on one of the evenings that she’d managed to take off from Fillory’s ongoing woes. “With Q. And if you tell me you haven’t got round to talking about it, there’ll be trouble.”

It was early April, and Eliot still hadn’t been to Fillory. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go, this time round. Josh and Fen had visited a couple of times, it had been great to see them, but Fillory felt like too much. Besides, he didn’t trust how time worked there and it was clear that for reasons that Eliot wasn’t prodding at, Quentin didn’t want to face Fillory either. And Eliot was deeply reluctant to be away from Quentin even for a day.

Eliot was lying on the sofa with his head in her lap. Q was cooking in the kitchen, or at least, heating up whatever leftovers he’d found.

“We sort of talked about it,” said Eliot. “Long distance, I guess?”

“Long distance _relationship_ ,” said Margo, with emphasis. “ _Another_ long-distance relationship, though I really fucking hesitate to use that word about Hades.”

“That’s – not really a word I’d associate with Hades myself,” said Eliot. “He’d be – he’d probably laugh himself sick.”

“Jesus,” said Margo. “First I spend months counselling fucking Coldwater over you, and now you’re going maudlin over Hades? Don’t make me go down there with a shovel, Waugh. He should be fucking grateful he’s got you.”

“It’s just – not _like_ that,” said Eliot.

“Isn’t it,” said Margo.

There were a few moments of silence.

“Long distance, sure,” said Margo. “I mean, people do it, right? But you can’t contact Q from the Underworld, can you?”

“No,” said Eliot. “I have an idea I want to run by Alice, though.”

“El,” said Margo. She stroked his hair. “You and Q work, you know? I hate to say this, but you’re really fucking sweet together. Which is why I don’t want everything to burst into flames – metaphorical flames, hopefully – two minutes after you wave goodbye. Have you talked to Julia?”

Eliot frowned up at her.

“She’s been doing some research,” Margo said.

“Research?” Eliot pulled himself up, and turned round.

“To get you out,” said Margo. “That’s all I know.” She studied Eliot, a frown forming. “El, do you _want_ out?”

Eliot looked over at Quentin, who was rummaging in the fridge for something.

“It’s not something I’ve thought about,” he said.

“Well,” said Margo. “Maybe you should.”

Eliot went over to Brakebills the next week. Quentin came with him, he’d been talking vaguely about re-enrolling, picking up a few courses in the autumn and managing to graduate. Fogg had arranged to give him enough extra credit for assorted extra-curricular activities that it might only take a semester or two.

Julia was, as usual, in the depths of the library with a giant pile of arcane books. Eliot pulled out the seat opposite her, and sat down.

“Hi,” he said. “Margo said I needed to talk to you.”

“Eliot,” said Julia. She marked her place carefully, and shut the book. “Do you want to talk about this here? We could go somewhere with more wards?”

Eliot took a deep breath. Margo had been right. He’d made up his mind, but he still sent a wish towards Quentin, for forgiveness.

“I don’t want to talk about it at all,” he said. “Whatever you’re working on, you should stop.”

Julia searched his face. “Okay,” she said slowly. “Are you sure? Is this because you’re worried – ”

“No,” said Eliot. “Or not just that. I know I’m being ungrateful. I know you all want to help Q - ”

“And you,” said Julia.

 “ – and I get that,” said Eliot. “I feel like a selfish dick for saying this at all, but I’ve got obligations. In the Underworld. I don’t just mean to Hades, I mean – it’s hard to explain.”

“Q says you’re fixing up Elysium and that you love your work,” said Julia. “I understand. But Eliot, if Hades is – ”

Eliot half-smiled at her. She was so brave, Julia, and so smart. She kept coming back from things that would’ve destroyed anyone else, and she kept caring about other people, all through it.

“He’s not,” he said. “He’s not the villain of the piece. I like him, Julia. I mean, I don’t – I would always choose Quentin, you have to know that.”

“I know,” said Julia. She rested her hands on the book in front of her. Her mouth quirked. “It probably wasn’t do-able anyway,” she said. “Since Alice and Kady wouldn’t help me. Kady said she wasn’t bringing the wrath of the gods down on the hedge witches, and Alice just said no.”

Eliot nodded, relieved. “The Library and the Underworld are close,” he said.

“You’re really alright?” said Julia. “I guess I can sort of see it. Hades does sound kind of charming, in the literature.”

“Yeah. He really fucking is,” said Eliot, and Julia smiled back, a real smile.

Later, he lay beside Quentin, breath gradually slowing to normal.

“Mmm, that was…” said Quentin.

“Mmm,” said Eliot, reaching out a hand and vaguely petting him. His resolution to take things slowly had lasted about two weeks. A few more subtle revelations about his sex life elsewhere – he genuinely hadn’t remembered quite how effective this might be – and, anyway, Quentin had become extremely single-minded about Eliot fucking him in every possible way, as often as possible. And fucking Quentin, watching him lose control, seeing how much he loved it, was so intense that Eliot could hardly believe he was allowed it.

“I love you,” he said, surprising himself, though it wasn’t as though he didn’t say it as often as he could.

“I love you too,” said Quentin. “Hey. Are you OK?”

Eliot rolled over to face him.

“Julia was researching a way to cancel the contract,” he said. “I told her to stop.”

Quentin didn’t look at all surprised. “She told me,” he said.

“And – you’re fine about it?”

“Yes.” Quentin reached up and stroked Eliot’s hair back. “I knew you wouldn’t let her take the risk. And – I know you’re doing something good for the Underworld. That does matter, too. I haven’t fucking trailed around after you for four months without learning that.”

“Q,” said Eliot. He swallowed, painfully. “When I’m gone. It’s asking a lot. If you meet someone else, if you want to fuck other people – it would only be fair – ”

Quentin raised both eyebrows. “It would, yes,” he said.

Eliot blinked away a rush of panic.

“Idiot,” said Quentin. His face crinkled up, with affection, Eliot hoped. “It would totally be fair, _if_ I wanted to. What part of my not having voluntarily fucked anyone in years did you miss? And if you haven’t been trying to ruin me for anyone else, then what the fuck was all this? I love you, El. I’m not interested in anyone else.”

“There was Arielle,” said Eliot. “In Fillory. You wanted – ” He had to stop.

“Oh,” said Quentin. “El. That was a different world, a different time. And you were there for all of that. You made it happen. You _helped_. You tied our hands together, I remember that. You cut the fucking cord when Teddy was born, when I thought I was going to pass out, I remember that, too. You, like, carried us through that first year, and you carried me after Arielle got sick. I don’t remember everything but I don’t need to, I _know_ that.”

“You wanted kids,” said Eliot. “You wanted a wife: you wanted to fuck women. A woman. There are a lot of other people out there.”

“Newsflash: what people want changes,” said Quentin. “And we don’t always get it. I didn’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me – ”

“Same,” Eliot interrupted.

“ – but it’s done. Given the choice, I wouldn’t share you with anybody, I’d spend every day with you until you got sick of me. But that’s not the choice I – we – have. And I’ll take what we’ve got, Eliot. I want that. I’ll choose it. We’ve got form, making do with what we’ve got, right? So. You’re it for me. I’ll be there. Every fucking January, waiting for you.”

“I don’t deserve you,” said Eliot. “I never did. I’ll be there, though. I’ll be there looking for you, every time.”

**

Another month went by, and another, and it was the end of May: Eliot could take Quentin out to the parks, lie on the grass together, study the plants, take more notes. The notebooks and files were piling up, and time was running down. He needed help, but Alice was being very elusive, possibly because she thought he and Quentin needed to be left alone. She’d shown up about once a month since his return, and only on occasions when the penthouse was already full of the others. Eventually, Eliot had to ask her straight out to meet him.

Alice looked surprisingly well, considering that the Library seemed to turn everyone grey and managerial. There was something about its aesthetic that worked for her. Maybe it was the tailored trouser suits: such an improvement on all those little-girl dresses. Eliot had arranged to meet her in a bar, while Quentin was at therapy and then meeting up with Julia. Alice was already there when he arrived, sipping a Martini and wearing some very admirable spiked heels with her suit.

Eliot sat down on the next stool, and ordered two more.

“Thanks for coming,” he said. “I know how busy you are. I need a favour.”

Alice met his eyes. She looked wary. “This isn’t about Julia’s plan, is it?”

“God, no,” said Eliot. “There is no plan. Like, definitively not; that’s been over for a while.”

“Oh,” said Alice. “Good. I didn’t think you’d say yes, but.”

“He’s good, by the way,” said Eliot.

Alice nodded. “Tell him I said hi.”

“That’s kind of why I’m here,” said Eliot. “My time’s running out. And I need to know that Quentin’s alright, while I’m gone. I know I can’t contact him. I’m not asking you to break any rules. I just want – an emergency signal. In case.”

Alice pursed her mouth, and took a drink. “What good would that do? If you couldn’t respond.”

Eliot shrugged. “I could beg Hades,” he said. “If it came to it. I don’t know. But I do know that if I don’t hear anything at all, I don’t think I can stand it.”

Alice looked thoughtful. “Like, a code,” she said.

“Exactly. We send memos all the time anyway. We can work something out – do you have a pen?”

Alice was almost, not quite, smiling. “Like we’re twelve or something,” she said. “Secret messages.”

“I didn’t have any friends to send secret messages to, when I was twelve, so I wouldn’t know,” said Eliot. “But yeah, something like that.”

“I didn’t either,” said Alice. She met his eyes, and then they both looked away.

“How about, ‘fines overdue in Underworld branch’”? said Eliot. “Meaning, Q’s fine, he’s taking his meds, all good?”

Alice raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes, but your fines are always overdue anyway,” she said, and Eliot was surprised into laughing.

**

Another month went by, and then there were three days to go, and two, and one. Eliot didn’t have any bags to pack. He’d tidied all his things, all – all his _Earth_ stuff – away. He was note-perfect in the stuff he’d wanted to know: he’d have to negotiate some kind of file transfer, for the future, he had some thoughts on how to use the Library as an intermediary. He was – he couldn’t deny it – impatient to check on things. He was also, and he also couldn’t deny it, sort of looking forward to seeing Hades again.

But then there was Quentin, smiling more than he had been, eating better, hugging Eliot fiercely, moving with more confidence, giving Eliot everything he asked for and more, with a trust that was always breathtaking. Eliot wanted to see Quentin in the fall, to walk hand in hand with him through the leaves, feeling the chill in the air. He wanted to see Quentin off to Brakebills at the start of the semester and hear about every class he went to. He wanted to dress him up in a ridiculous outfit and go to a Halloween party, drunk and stupid. He wanted Thanksgiving turkey and Christmas carols. It was worth it, of course, it was worth everything. None of that would have mattered, if Quentin had still been dead. It didn’t stop him wanting it, though.

Quentin and Julia took him to the station, neither of them saying much. Eliot had said his goodbyes to Margo yesterday, and was consequently more hungover than he would have liked to be, since he and Margo had been drinking and reminiscing until around two, and then he’d fallen into bed with Quentin and they’d both stayed awake most of the rest of the night, not talking about all the things that they probably ought to have been talking about.

Julia peeled off and went to wait in a café, giving Eliot a brief hug goodbye. Quentin and Eliot stood on the concourse together, surrounded by the summer crowds. Quentin had his phone in his hand.

“Two minutes,” he said.

“OK,” said Eliot. “Here goes.” He bent and kissed Quentin, holding him tightly, trying to put everything into it, and then pulled away very slightly, so that he could meet Quentin’s eyes. “I love you, I’ll think about you every day, you have to look after yourself, because it won’t be that long before I’m back.”

Quentin looked at him, his face drawn and his eyes sad. Eliot bit his lip: what had he been thinking, that he could do this. Except that if he didn’t walk away, Quentin might be gone forever, the next moment.

“I love you,” Quentin said. “Don’t – remember that I, that we, that we’re all here. And I hope the – the theatre, and the paint, and everything – I hope it goes well.”

Eliot nodded. He couldn’t speak. Quentin’s alarm went off. He looked at Quentin one more time, trying to memorize him, and then he turned and walked towards the platforms.

Two steps, three – he wanted to look back – but the scene in front of him had shifted, and he was in the hall of his, of their, Elysium residence and workplace, marble and parquet. Eliot stopped, swaying. He felt – well, physically, he suddenly felt great. The hangover was gone, the tiredness; he felt fresh, well-rested, clear-headed. All his other feelings: he needed to shut those away, carefully, to be taken out only on occasion. It shouldn’t be hard, since he’d already had a lot of practice over the years.

Hades was standing on the stairs in front of him, leaning against the banister.

“Good visit?” he said.

Eliot smiled at him. Hades waiting for him like this, that was a good sign. He hoped.

“Excellent,” he said.

“Things went well, with your – friends?” said Hades.

“Yes,” said Eliot.

“Good,” said Hades. “I was following Miss Wicker’s investigations, you know. She’s a fascinating creature. She was almost onto something. Though not quite.”

Eliot ran a hand through his hair. It seemed that the length might have changed, slightly. He couldn’t remember exactly how long it had been, six months ago.

“Then you probably know what I said to her,” he said.

“In general terms,” said Hades. “I promised not to spy on you. I know her activity has ceased, that’s all.”

“I’ve got things to do, here,” said Eliot. “And I made a promise. You know I’ll keep it.”

Hades studied him, thoughtfully. “I do know,” he said. “And I have to say, Eliot Waugh, that it has been considerably more – boring – in your absence.”

Eliot smiled at him, and found it was entirely unfeigned. “Well,” he said. “I certainly have some ideas to change that.”


End file.
